Desperate Measures
by PantyDragon
Summary: There are people in this world who do terrible things, depraved things. There are some cases that even Sherlock Holmes doesn't want to solve. He is human after all, he does have a heart: one he's hidden away, and with good reason. Even from John.
1. Blood and Chemistry

AN: I began writing this in a fit of insomnia and found myself unable to stop. This will be a fic in about 20 chapters. It is 90% finished, and each chapter will be posted as I am satisfied with it (after my beta reader and I have ripped it apart and built it back up again). Rated M for the following: 1 described instance of rape, 1 case involving reference to paedophilia, 2 descriptions of substance abuse, multiple references to brutal physical violence related to aforementioned case, 1 instance of violent electrocution, 1 stabbing, and a liberal smattering of swear words.

Constructive criticism is encouraged and welcome, key word being "constructive."

Thank you for reading.

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><p>It was quiet. It had been quiet for too long. He paced, dragging his feet on the gouged hardwood floor, his deft fingers jittery, aching for his violin. At least that would be something to do, even pizzicato, some noise. But he didn't have his violin. He didn't have anything that was his own except a few shirts and a toothbrush that Mycroft had brought him along with a half-hearted and uncomfortable apology. <em>Father overreacted, Sherlock, if I'd known this would happen... <em>

It didn't matter. He had dropped the toothbrush on the grimy floor just a few hours later and was afraid to use it now. He pined for that toothbrush as though his dog had died. He'd never had a dog, but that wasn't the point. It had been his only hard, tactile possession, and he had ruined it. Why couldn't Mycroft have brought his violin? Fuck shirts, he wanted the warm, dark wood and the firm strings on his fingers. He could have lived without the shirts, but then, that's how Mycroft was. _Practical_. He fought the wave of grief and anger that rose in his throat at the thought of his brother. This wasn't Mycroft's fault, not ultimately, not really, but it was so much easier to blame Mycroft, easier to hate anyone but himself.

He was maddeningly isolated, too much in his chest and not enough in his head to crowd it out. Bored and emotional: a very noxious combination. He could think of a few ways to suspend both problems for a while – his mouth twitched into a half-smile – but that was how he had gotten into this mess in the first place, wasn't it? He rejected the thought and resumed pacing.

He couldn't pace forever.

He knew where the syringes were. More importantly, he knew where the solution was. He took a deep breath.

No. Be sensible. No.

But he was long past sensibility. His fingers twitched. Tchaikovsky on thin air. He was here, wasn't he? Here in this strange, under-furnished flat and he didn't even have a fucking toothbrush. It couldn't get worse. It couldn't.

Just a little prick. It would hardly hurt at all.

The rush of liquid made his veins swell, showing belled and blue in the crook of his elbow as he pushed the plunger. His hands didn't shake; they had stopped shaking months ago, and he withdrew the emptied needle smoothly, freeing the slightly tented skin to flatten against his frost-white forearm. His head tipped back onto the arm of the sofa and he sighed deeply, letting the plastic syringe drop to the hardwood with a distant tap. He felt it burning its way up his arm already, and a mirthless smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. A little thrill tickled the base of his spine as he let his eyes sink closed.

He had already forgotten Mycroft and the toothbrush and his violin. He was giddy, anxious for stimulus, for the cavalcade of thoughts and ideas and sensations that were even now rushing through the narrow veins of his arm, high into his shoulder, nearly to his neck he supposed, any minute now. Almost.

He'd never had good veins. They were too small, always collapsing when the needle slid through. He'd needed practice, he'd tried often before he could shoot up, but he'd been determined. He had managed.

He rubbed slowly at the injection site, massaging away the burning, working the drug into his system, eager for an immediate reaction. He drew a long breath that expanded his narrow chest until it ached, then let it out slowly. Be patient. He had never been patient. Chemicals, do chemicals.

_**C**__21__**H**__22__**N**__2__**O**__2 Strychnine, easy, predictable._

_**C**__17__**H**__19__**NO**__3, Morphine._

_**C**__17__**H**__21__**NO**__4 Cocaine, come on now, do organics, something harder._

_**CA**__2952__**H**__4664__**N**__812__**O**__832__**S**__8__**Fe**__4__, Haemoglobin. Basically. Almost, but not exactly, not perfectly exact._

It was taking effect already, he felt it. He had looped on haemoglobin, couldn't go on to another formula. His right hand, still clamped on his left arm, relaxed and drifted over to rest on his flat, firm belly. His fingers flexed, grasping a handful of shirt.

His heart sped.

The shirt button clamped firmly between his knuckles was as a world all its own; the smooth and the edges, the four tiny holes and the unending loops of thread that wound through them. He twisted his slender fingers around it, unnerved, exploring. It felt good, the plastic was warm from his body heat, and not too hard, just plastic. He had to remind himself to breathe, breathe slowly. The tickle of the smooth cotton on the tender underside of his wrist was enough to make him quiver. Over-stimulating, but then, that was the point.

His ice-blue eyes snapped open in a rush, and even the dim light was dazzling, sinking into the depths of his brain. The door had opened, he heard it creak. He hadn't heard the footsteps on the stairs, he'd been too busy with his button.

"Having a lie in again, Sherlock?"

He couldn't answer. Button. Button was too important. He wasn't sure why it meant he couldn't speak, but it did. He parted his lips slightly and arched his back against the rough fabric of the sofa. He didn't want to be bothered, the room was spinning. His chest hurt. Was he breathing too much, or not enough?

"Sherlock?" there was a gentle laugh. "Christ, you're pathetic. Why are you unbuttoning your shirt?"

Was he unbuttoning his shirt? He didn't even know. He had just become aware of the upholstery on the sofa, and he was running his fingers over it, counting something _8,9,10,11,12_. What? The threads? His fingernail grazed the weave and this finger vibrated over the rough ribbing. He made a soft sound, barely more than a breath, and repeated the movement.

He froze. A cool, brusque hand was tugging at his shirt. The second-to-last button was undone after all, it had been unintentional. Was it being re-buttoned? Why was he tugging at it?

"You continuing with that, then?" The intruding fingers flicked his shirt aside, stroking boldly at his exposed abdomen through the gap that the loosened button had created. Dizzily, Sherlock tried to push him off, closing his fingers over his flatmate's wrist, but lacking the strength to tear his hand away.

His skin was cold from the November air, and it was almost painful against Sherlock's hot, hyper-sensitive flesh. He knew that his stomach muscles were trembling, but it seemed that only he understood that this was discomfort, not an invitation. The remaining buttons on his shirt were being plucked open at an alarming rate, and as the chill air rolled over his exposed skin, he gasped slightly. It was too much, his brain was overflowing. He felt each goose bump blossom on his skin like the prick of a needle, drawing blood from him, leaving him icy and empty.

He gripped the edge of the sofa and forced himself to focus on the texture of the fabric against his skin, forced details to melt away. This couldn't really be happening. His clear, empty eyes fixed on the water-spotted ceiling, as good as any starscape, drawing away his thoughts to follow the snaking yellowish lines. Nothing else, he thought of nothing else. He felt pressure astride his hips, and his heart rate shot up. Warm breath bathed his neck, and he was kissed, roughly, teeth on his soft lips. A pleading, insistent tongue filled his mouth, longing for his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to breathe properly. He nearly choked, but he hadn't the strength. Hands wandered over his chest and the pale skin of his stomach, and his insides twisted with revulsion. Every muscle tightened anxiously whenever they grazed his nipples.

A pain was rising in his head that made his whole spine ache. This touching had to stop, it hurt. It didn't hurt exactly, it wasn't hurting him, but it made him hurt. He moaned past the eager mouth controlling his own, and he felt an intensifying pressure against his lower abdomen.

"Fuck, Sherlock…Unh, _Christ_."

His head throbbed. No, no, no. In the brief moment that his mouth was unfettered, he tried to say stop. He wanted to, but his mouth felt numb. He wasn't sure if it was the drug or the hard kissing, but his throat was dry, his tongue buzzing and prickling as though it had lost circulation. The tugging at his waist caught his attention, the click and jingle of his belt buckle, and he knew it was _his_, somehow, he recognized the sound.

Protectively, he brought his forearms over his exposed stomach as he was wracked with violent shivers. He had resigned himself to the fact that he couldn't stop this, couldn't even try. His mind was long-absent, but his body felt every cold touch, every hair on end at the nape of his neck, and it was nauseating. The button at his waist was freed too easily, the zipper hissed loudly in his ears, and his assailant relented his body weight only long enough to slide Sherlock's trousers – and his shorts – down over his bare feet.

The collar of his unbuttoned shirt, his only remaining item of clothing, tickled his neck and his mind grasped distantly at the sensation. As comforts went, it was minimal, but it was better than nothing.

His head spun, and his throat burned with pent-up refusals that couldn't force past his traitorous tongue. His distant eyes glinted like wet crystal in the light as he stared fixedly at the grimy ceiling. It took him a few seconds to register the uncomfortable position that his hips had been forced into.

There was heavy breathing, loud in his ears, and he didn't know if it was his own or not. He was pushed, roughly, repeatedly, and felt the friction of jeans against the underside of his thighs. He was being spoken to, but everything was fragmented, faceted like glass, throwing words and shadows and fear bouncing around the inside of his skull until he was nearly blinded by it.

He was panting, he was sure of it now, and his skin was filmy with cold sweat. His slender hands gripped his own ribcage, as though he were trying to keep all his insides safe. There was scrabbling, shuffling, the sound of another zipper.

No, no, no…

And then there was pain, shooting up his spine to spill into his head, exploding like mortar fire. Every muscle in him clenched, his back arched, and he couldn't breathe beyond a ragged gasp. And that made it worse. His vision went black for a few rapid heartbeats and he felt tears streaming from the outer corners of his eyes, soaking into his hair. It was worse than being stabbed, and he'd been stabbed before, he knew. It felt like being pulled apart. He was shaking, ice-cold, bloodless, except for the few places that were burning with foreign body heat and friction and agony.

And god, it went on forever.

Blood trickled from his nose; he felt the dampness of it on his lips.

With an unapologetic grunt, it was over. He was in no less pain, but he felt a wave of relief nonetheless. Was that laughing or panting? He didn't care, just shut his eyes and lay still, deathly still.

"Oh shit, did I hit your nose?"

He didn't answer, didn't know.

"Sorry, mate."


	2. Chess and Children

AN: You shall have to pardon me for all this darkness and angst. Also, I apologize if the nature of this case upsets anyone, but it was necessary to make the story work. Rest assured, there is nothing in here more graphic than what you might find on television crime dramas, so no need to fret.

Reviews/constructive criticism are welcome and encouraged.

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><p>Sherlock flicked the chess board away in frustration, upsetting several pieces, and leaned back in the chair, arms crossed huffily.<p>

John's brows furrowed as he looked up at him over the decimated game. "What the hell was that?" He demanded.

"It was a fluke; I don't know how you did it."

"What?" He looked down at the board expectantly, but the little beady-eyed knight had no idea either.

"Don't expect to win so easily on a regular basis, I'm hardly on top of my game today." He tipped forward and ruffled his curly hair with a sigh.

John chewed his tongue pensively. He had made only eight moves, but then, this was Sherlock. The last time they had played chess, Sherlock had beaten him cleanly in just thirteen moves. John was self-admittedly rubbish at chess; he played too defensively and could only plan two or three moves ahead, where his adversary could manage at least twenty. Their matches were hardly fair. Yet this time, John realised, Sherlock had already projected every possible outcome of the game and determined that John would win.

A smile cracked his face as it occurred to him that Sherlock Holmes was - of course – assuming that John Watson would be playing as Sherlock Holmes would have played. That wasn't the case. John would have made a mistake somewhere, would have missed an opportunity or left a piece undefended. Sherlock would have won, but that didn't matter. Sherlock wasn't playing against the mere man that was John Watson, he was playing against _himself_, and he had lost.

"No more chess today, then?"

"No."

"Tea?"

"Please."

He began to gather up the little pieces, but Sherlock's hand fell over his. "I've got it, make tea." John raised his eyebrows but left him to it, sauntering off to the kitchen to fetch the kettle. Sherlock turned the rook over in his hand, warming the cool stone piece with his palm before dropping it back into the blue velveteen bag.

If the news stories were any indication, Lestrade would be here by five. Two little girls, found dead, all the withheld details pointed to something...unsavoury, something sexual, statements from police suggested something gory, likely torture. With a third reported missing this morning, snatched on the walk between her home and her school, it was only a matter of time. She was dead by now, almost certainly.

He felt a strange and unfamiliar pang of dread in the pit of his stomach and his mouth tensed slightly.

"You'll want to wash a third mug, John."

There was a knock on the door downstairs. Right on schedule.

John glanced from Sherlock to the staircase. "Planning on getting that?"

"It's Lestrade." He announced, as though the declaration spoke for itself.

John pursed his lips slightly, but set down the newly-scrubbed mugs and scuttled down the stairs to the door. Brief, distant words of greeting were exchanged, and John returned with Gregory Lestrade tight on his heels.

Definitely the little girl, definitely murdered, definitely raped. The set of Lestrade's shoulders and the weight of his footsteps left no doubt. Sherlock's eyes never left the scattered chess pieces as the DI approached.

"I told you when you asked me last year," his voice was a low rumble, "I don't take this sort of case."

There was a brief pause, just enough time for Lestrade to be completely unsurprised by Sherlock's pre-emptive rebuttal. "Yes, I remember," he glanced at the armchair but didn't take it, "and we didn't solve that one, either."

"Not my problem." John retreated uncomfortably to the kitchen, silently hoping that the kettle would take its sweet time to boil. He was interested, certainly, but he got the distinct impression that he should keep his distance from these two obviously agitated men.

"Say whatever you want to remove yourself from this, but you must know what's going on by now, never mind that we haven't reported it. These are _children_, and they're being tortured and killed by some sick bastard. You have it within your ability to stop this, should you _elect_ to do so, but for some unfathomable reason, you refuse."

John had stopped bustling around the kitchen to listen, almost without realizing it, but Sherlock hadn't missed a beat. "Kettle's boiling over, John." It was. He hissed a profanity or two and rushed to turn off the stovetop.

Sherlock turned, finally, to meet Lestrade's glare. "Rapists are not like other criminals. Motive is hazy at best, always emotionally complex, behaviour is irrational and unpredictable. I'm not a psychologist, Detective Inspector; this is not my field of expertise."

Lestrade turned away, clearly frustrated, his hands tapped anxiously inside his coat pockets. "Sherlock, _everything_ is your field of expertise. I know you could give us something to work with, a fucking _eyelash_, anything." He was swearing, very uncharacteristic, he must be profoundly affected indeed. "Just come take a look, this one was only found an hour ago. I've got the file on the two others. If you come up with nothing, I won't bother you about it again, but I'm begging you – "

"Oh, I'll come up with something," he interjected. He sat back further in the chair and pressed his fingertips together over his lips. "But if I make a mistake, if I'm wrong, then when the next girl turns up, it will be _my_ fault, for wasting police resources, for letting the killer escape, for butting in. By the time your people and the media and tear me apart it'll be as though I strangled the victims myself. I may not care much about public opinion, but your superiors certainly do. One major mistake and I'll never be allowed on another case, all because you didn't accept it when I told you that _this is not my area_."

Lestrade scratched his eyebrow, more or less an excuse to break Sherlock's piercing glare. He was done, nearly ready to back off, but he had one last pocket ace. "It's one thing to try and then fail anyway," he said, his voice poisonous, "but you're letting this happen. By choosing to do nothing, you might as well be strangling them yourself, you might as well have broken their fingers, _fucked_ all of them yourself and dumped their bodies in alleys –"

"Go and look at the bloody crime scene, Sherlock!" John roared, slamming the mug he was holding down on the countertop. Lestrade spun to look at him, but could see only his quivering shoulders and his hands splayed out on the counter, knuckles bloodless. Target reached.

Sherlock was silent for a moment, his eyes likewise fixed on John's turned back.

"Lestrade, go wait in the hallway."

His shoulders sagged in relief, "So you'll come, then?"

"I didn't say that, I said wait in the hallway. I need to have a word… with my colleague."

Irritated, but undeniably hopeful, he slid one last look between the two residents of 221B and retreated down the stairs.

Sherlock stared at John intently, waiting for him to turn around which, slowly, he did. His face was slightly pale, set in a stony glower.

"What?"

"What do you think?" A moment of silence. "You don't take rape cases?"

"You heard me."

"Why not?"

"Because they are not precise. Deducing the actions of carnally irrational people is considerably less exact. It's a job for a psychologist, not a detective."

"But Lestrade is right. You could find something to go on."

"You heard what I said, John." He repeated emphatically.

"This is about your ego."

Sherlock's eyebrow twitched and he laced his fingers over his stomach. "Is it?"

"You're afraid of being wrong." He growled, and once he said it, he couldn't stop himself from saying the rest. "You don't care if everyone hates you, most people already hate you, but you're afraid of looking like an idiot, of having a moment of humanity. And you can say you don't care all you want, but this makes you squeamish. You can deal with all the blood and guts in the world, but something about a little kid being raped and tortured puts you off."

"It puts _you_ off."

"Of course it does, it disgusts me, it's sick."

"You sure you're not just projecting, then?"

"You sure you're even human?"

Sherlock lowered his eyes for a moment, and John wasn't sure if he had touched a nerve or just provoked a thought. The electricity between them nearly made John's hair stand on end as he waited for Sherlock's reply.

"You will do the medical examination of the victim," He stated flatly. It wasn't a question, but a condition. If John was going to be insistent on this case, he was going to realize the full discomfort of it.

John swallowed. This hadn't immediately occurred to him, but he was a doctor. This was his job. And he had, for better or worse, made this case his business. He nodded curtly.

They threw on coats and shoes with little of their normal enthusiasm, but when they reached Lestrade in the hallway Sherlock sank into casework mode. John could see it in his face, the picture of efficiency.

Lestrade had arrived not in a police cruiser, but in his own car, and where Sherlock would normally have insisted on taking a cab, he conceded to let the DI drive them to the scene. John wasn't sure if it was a disappointment or a relief to sit in the back in silence while Lestrade briefed Sherlock on the particulars of the victim, the crime scene, and the circumstances surrounding her death.

Her name was Lucia Printz, ten years old, curly brown hair, brown eyes. She had gone missing on the six-block walk from her house to school and her teacher had phoned her mother when she had failed to turn up for her first class. The mother, apparently, was inconsolable. She normally walked her daughter to school, but had suffered a migraine that morning and had allowed Lucia to walk the short distance herself. Now the girl had turned up dead, dumped in an alleyway between three and four in the afternoon, apparently sexually assaulted, brutally beaten, and strangled.

John could see the cogs working in his head already. It was an unusual crime, even beyond the paedophilic aspect. Committed in broad daylight, surprisingly local, the body having been found only a few miles from where she had been abducted. Both the street where the girl had been picked up and the area where she had been disposed of were fairly busy, yet none of the interviewed parties had noticed anything unusual. Sherlock was already dissecting the facts, sitting quietly and absorbing every detail that Lestrade was pouring out for him. John heard him flipping through the files on his lap.

Lestrade parked two streets up and they filed out, Sherlock still carrying the case notes under one arm. The alley in question was cordoned off with police tape, and the adjacent road was blocked by four police cars and an ambulance, lights spinning silently. Traffic had been redirected further up the street. He lifted the tape and stood aside to let them duck beneath it. John found himself half-braced, waiting for the obligatory "afternoon, Freak," or "why is _he_ here?" but both Anderson and Donovan were conspicuously absent. He wondered if Lestrade had arranged this intentionally, knowing that Sherlock would be hesitant to accept and hoping that a little less criticism might persuade him. Regardless, it was a welcome change. Someone from the forensics team crossed their path and handed a pair of latex gloves each to Sherlock and John before leading them further into the alley.

"Most of the last hour has been spent securing the area and taking photographs," Lestrade explained, trailing slightly behind. "We've turned her over, we had to so we could check for vitals, but otherwise nothing's been touched. The sexual assault is just conjecture, based on the previous two cases, but this level of violence says they're almost certainly connected."

John balked slightly as they rounded the damp pile of cardboard boxes stacked on the left side of the cobbled alleyway and he saw the pitiful bundle curled behind them. She seemed so terribly small, even for the age of ten, like a doll. Though there wasn't a doll in existence with a face so destroyed. She was blue with bruises, one cheekbone looked broken, and her half-open eyes were bright red, bleeding. Her body was turned awkwardly at the abdomen. She had clearly been laid in the foetal position before her torso was turned to check for breath and pulse. Her shoulders were bare, but she was wrapped in a clean white sheet, then in a black plastic bin liner.

He stopped several steps short of approaching her, trying to switch off John and switch on Dr. Watson MD, but the change was slow in coming.


	3. Trust and Deductions

AN: SURPRISE! I'm publishing 3 and 4 a few hours early. I'm soooooo changeable!

Truth is, I'm just cruel. I want you all to have to wait a good day or two at least between Chapters 4 and 5, that way you can suffer through the anticipation of what you will inevitably begin to fear is going to happen to our favorite consulting detective.

_What?_ You may ask, _what's going to happen?_ For that, you must read on, dear readers. Read on.

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><p>Sherlock wasted no time at all. He snapped on the gloves as his eyes cast around, scanning, taking cursory note of the environment before he crouched down to pry at the body. He began peeling away the bin liner from her shoulders but hesitated.<p>

"You've photographed the whole crime scene? Thoroughly? I'll have to disturb some of this."

"Of course." Lestrade cleared his throat softly, looking as though he wanted to back further away, but not quite daring.

Sherlock extricated the girl's tiny wrist and turned it over with uncharacteristic gentleness. It was bruised, but there was nothing that looked like a ligature mark. Not tied up, then. He drew the magnifier and examined her fingernails, then set her hand down at her side. His fingers pried open one of her drooping eyes and pushed her long hair from her face. The ring around her neck where she had been strangled shone, livid and purple against her pale skin.

"And you didn't put the sheet on her? You found her like this?"

"No, it was on her when we arrived," chimed in the assistant coroner, peering over Letsrade's shoulder. John glared at him.

For whatever reason, Sherlock seemed to find this interesting. He went over the sheet thoroughly, long fingers picking at all the seams, before slowly pulling it away from the girl's tiny body. She looked grey in the dim afternoon light. Grey and purple and red. She was covered with bruises, though nowhere quite as darkly as on her face, and long, red welts stretched over her abdomen.

John had to turn his head, avert his gaze just briefly, to keep his composure. _You're a doctor_, he reminded himself as rage and nausea fought each other for dominance in his empty stomach, _You're a doctor and you insisted on this case._

Slowly, carefully, Sherlock prodded at her naked body with steady, attentive hands, going over the bruises and the broken skin, gently lifting her to look at her back, then turning his attention back to the white sheet. He sniffed it slightly, then sniffed the girl's hair. Whatever he had been after, he must have found it because he finally straightened up and backed away a few steps, turning to John and nodding.

"Doctor Watson will take it from here," he announced, turning back toward the street. John swallowed hard and steeled himself. Doctor Watson indeed.

"Now hold on," Lestrade snapped. "We don't do any sort of comprehensive medical examination in the field, and even if we did, we have a whole team of specialists." He turned apologetically to John. "No offense, Dr. Watson, I'm sure you're excellent at your job, but you're not a paediatrician, you're not a coroner, and perhaps most importantly, you're not affiliated with Scotland Yard. We'll examine her at the hospital and send you the report."

Sherlock spun on his heels and snarled simply, "No."

"No?" Letsrade repeated imperiously.

"If you want me on this case," he warned, "we will do this investigation as I direct, and protocol be damned."

Lestrade met his gaze, for once as stone-facedly indomitable as the consulting detective.

Both of them recognized the outburst for what it was. Sherlock was pushing his boundaries, _daring_ Lestrade to throw him off the case, knowing that he was both desperate and emotionally invested in Sherlock's success. Sherlock himself wasn't entirely sure if he was hoping for the ban or for acquiescence. Neither option was exactly desirable. Lestrade finally replied, but in spite of his choice of words there was not the slightest tremor of assent in his tone. "Fine. But my team supervises."

"Unnecessary, but if you insist…" Sherlock raised his eyebrows, shrugged and made a beeline for the street.

"What, you're leaving?" John demanded, perplexed, and started after him. Lestrade looked equally bemused.

"You've got nothing, then?" His disbelieving query was so quick that it nearly stepped on the tail of John's question.

"Oh, I've got plenty," he snapped, "all of which will be submitted to you tomorrow morning, as an anonymous tip-off, which you will not connect to me in any way."

"What the bloody hell for?" He looked to John, who only shrugged disapprovingly and took a few more steps after the retreating detective. "We don't have time to wait for your damn letter! This guy is out there, right now, he dumped this girl two or three hours ago, and every second we wait – "

"Nothing happens," Sherlock chimed in, his tone scalding. He turned as he peeled off his gloves to address Lestrade and the rest of the forensics team. "Come on, think about it. _Really_ think. Your criminal lives within a few miles of here, but he's confident. Too confident. He knows with absolute certainty that, in spite of all this evidence, you lot have exactly nothing on him. He's systematic, he has specific girls in mind, not based on physical features, none of them look alike, but on something particular regardless. He followed Lucia Printz until the one day her mother was gone, he could have waited weeks for that. The other two were killed sixteen days apart. He's waiting for opportunities. With all the warnings on the news, no parent in their right mind will let their child out of their sight, much less out of their house in the evening. No, with a killer this determined and this confident, he won't run, and he won't make a move unless it carries him toward his goal. Nothing at all will have happened by tomorrow."

The string of assertions had a near-hypnotic calming effect on Lestrade. Sherlock was deducing, he was in his element, and that meant something, at least, was going right. He wanted to protest, he was antsy to be done with this business and have a predator behind bars to show for it, but the investigation was no longer fully in his control, and he knew it. Sherlock turned to leave once again, but now it was John's turn to object.

"You're not leaving me on my own here," he scoffed indignantly, but his heart was turning to ice in his chest.

"You're surrounded by London's finest, John." He glanced around, "so to speak. Meet me back at Baker Street when you're through."

"Sherlock!" John cried after him, but he had already ducked under the blue-and-white police tape and turned up the street. John's shoulders sagged, and a heavy lump of dread settled in his stomach as his eyes fell slowly back upon the girl's corpse.

"You alright, Doctor?" Lestrade ventured to wonder, his brows furrowing with concern.

No, absolutely not alright. Sherlock had just left him here, left him alone again. "Hmm? Oh, yeah. Yeah." He cleared his throat. "Fine." He ran his fingers through his hair. He needed it cut, it was getting long. Shit, now he needed sterile gloves. "You've got a...erm," he gesticulated absently toward the street, "a rape kit? In the ambulance?"

Lestrade gave him a pained look. "If you want, the assistant coroner can do the exam. It's his job anyway, not yours. I'll give you a copy of the report and tell Sherlock that you did it."

He stared at the girl's body, meditatively, and for a long time he could bring himself to say nothing.

"…No," he muttered finally. It was tempting, but Sherlock would never believe it, he was too clever, and he knew John too well, from vocabulary to handwriting. That wasn't the real reason that Lestrade's offer was out of the question, though. He sighed deeply and added with solemnity, "I have to do it. I have to do it because I said I would. Because he trusts me."


	4. Doubts and Pythagoras

AN: John Watson, why don't you trust your instincts?

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><p>Sherlock's eyes were fixed on the ceiling. He had pushed the coffee table over near the fireplace and used the floor as a workspace, spreading out the girls' case files like a scrapbooking project, all of it a sort of organized chaos. Yet his mind was blank. Thoughts buzzed and writhed in the background but nothing clicked, nothing stuck. Something was wrong. Wrong with the case? Wrong with his brain? He wasn't sure.<p>

He heard John, finally, thundering up the stairs as conspicuously as possible but his gaze remained unfaltering.

"Thanks, Sherlock, I needed that," he panted, his voice dripping with sarcasm, malice even. "Being left alone to examine the raped and beaten corpse of a 10-year-old. Smashing good time. And what the _hell_ have you been doing that was so important that you couldn't put it off for an hour?"

Sherlock pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. "Thinking."

"Right, fine." He slumped against the doorframe and his nose wrinkled slightly. "Is that – " he caught sight of the end table, where two snubbed-out cigarettes were lying on a saucer. "You've been smoking? What about the patches?"

Sherlock's only response was a loud, exasperated sigh, and John's jaw tensed in irritation. He crossed the room – stepping gingerly around the carpeting of papers – and reached out to snatch away the ashy saucer, but Sherlock reached over the top of his head and caught John's wrist, holding him in place. With his other hand he snapped his fingers and held his palm beneath John's nose. Both remained unmoving for a few long seconds before Sherlock prompted "the report, John."

He tugged his arm free of Sherlock's grip and fumbled in his pockets for the thick but badly creased packet. Sherlock regarded it distastefully.

"Oh don't. Lestrade kept the presentable copy."

He flipped through it listlessly, grazing over the diagrams and handwritten notes, but not really absorbing any of it. In a matter of moments he had grown so frustrated that he dropped the report onto the floor, folded his hands over his chest, and resumed his staring match with the ceiling.

"Look, Sherlock," John snarled, "I did my bit, I spent the last – "

"I can't take this case, John."

"What? Why?"

"It's wrong, it doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't make sense to any sane person, that doesn't mean it's unsolvable."

"It's not unsolvable, nothing's unsolvable, and that's not what I meant."

"What then?"

Sherlock swung his feet to the floor and sat up abruptly, meeting John's accusatory glare with unsettling directness. "I understand motive." He explained, "I understand vengeance, greed, vindication, fear, anger. I understand what people do and why they do it, and from that I deduce how. That's how I work, but people respond to _incentives_, John. They're always seeking to gain something, be it physical or psychological, but _this_," he gestured to the mess on the floor. "What is this? It doesn't make sense. You can _buy_ sex anywhere, of any quality, to accommodate any fetish, and all without anywhere near this level of risk. Why would he put himself under such scrutiny, risk such grievous punishment for _this_?" Rant apparently vented, he sank back into the sofa, eyes distant.

John crossed his arms hopelessly, considered the sea of papers and photographs and gave a wry, humorless laugh. "I don't think – God, I never thought I'd be saying this to Sherlock Holmes – but I really don't think you _get_ it." He stalked his armchair, frustrated, before dropping into it heavily, careful to avoid the hard edge of the displaced coffee table.

Sherlock slid his fingers through his curly hair and addressed the floorboards cynically. "Oh, do go on, Doctor, enlighten me. What is it _exactly_ that I don't 'get'?" He looked at John expectantly.

John's chest was tight, not sure he was getting at the right question. "In your whole life, is there anything that you've _desired_? Something you'd do literally anything to have?"

"I desire a stroke of genius, at this exact moment, I suppose that's the most relevant."

"No, no, not like that at all. You're reinforcing my previous statement here." He licked his lips anxiously and realised he was backed into a corner. He decided to try a drastically different tack. "When was the last time you had sex?"

Sherlock's head snapped up smoothly, like a pendulum, and he gave John a look of such incredulity that an onlooker might have thought John had just accused him of being an alien.

A stab of realisation punctured John's lungs and he swallowed thickly. "I…I mean, you _have_ – "

"I've had sex, John."

Alright then.

"Right, so," he had to stop to clear his throat, "I mean, I'm not comparing you to...this, this... instance, but just for the sake of argument, what went through your mind?"

"The Pythagorean Theorem." No hesitation.

John paused, just absorbing that for a moment. "You cannot be serious," he all but pleaded. If this was really how Sherlock operated then they really had hit a standstill. Every direction he had planned on taking this conversation was abruptly revealed to be a dead end.

"Well, I know not _everyone_ thinks about geometry, obviously." Sherlock shouted defensively, eyes narrowing. "I know a rapist doesn't attack children because of –"

"And you got off on that, did you? Pythagoras?" He demanded. He knew he shouldn't be angry, had no right to be, but he couldn't help himself. His hands were still gritty with latex powder and here was Sherlock, completely oblivious to everything even tenuously pertinent. The man couldn't even properly wrap his head around the notion of sex, and he was trying to solve a rape case? This was deluded. No wonder he was getting nowhere.

"Of course not."

"Then why –" he clamped his teeth together to stifle a frustrated scream, "look, never mind, forget I asked, it's only remotely relevant anyway. You can drop the case if you want, but please, at least write up what you've found for Lestrade. You might have stumbled upon something that a normal human being could take from here." He realized what he'd said an instant too late. "Wait, Sherlock, I meant – "

Sherlock had already stormed past him into his bedroom. John heard the door slam and then the click of the lock.

Smooth. Very clever, that. John buried his head in his hands and groaned, the fire suddenly gone out of him, leaving only a sense of revulsion that he was sure he would never get over. It hardly mattered that he'd never get Sherlock back on this case now.

He knew he should feel hungry, but his stomach was still writhing. He stood up to wander the kitchen and found his right leg uncomfortably stiff. A shake of his head and a few brisk steps and he was over it, but he didn't forget immediately. Nothing looked appetizing, and for once the three pints of spoiled human blood in the fridge was not to blame. He opened and shut the cabinets mechanically, made several laps, in fact, but to no avail.

His stomach would just have to cope, because in spite of the relatively early hour, he was overcome with emotional and physical exhaustion. He trudged upstairs, having to concentrate very hard on not allowing himself to limp. Something nagging in the back of his mind told him to check on Sherlock, but he stubbornly resisted the impulse.

_He's a bloody adult. A childish one, maybe, but he doesn't need his flatmate doing bed-checks._

Twice. Twice in less than three hours John had accused him of being something other than properly human.

He was subjected to the notion on a daily basis, and had always taken it as something more like a complement than an insult. He wasn't ordinary, after all. He knew that.

But surely John…surely _John_ knew him well enough by now…

He snapped up out of bed, onto his feet, and snatched his violin viciously from its case, set it to his shoulder. His finger hovered over the E string and he braced for the sound, but couldn't follow through with it. Imagining the note made him sick. Something about the violin revolted him right now. He slammed his oldest friend back into its case and threw himself back onto the mattress.

The violin wasn't enough anymore. It had been with him for nearly fifteen years now, ever since his father had crushed his first one, making it clear that Sherlock - and anything Sherlock cared for –was no longer welcome in the Holmes household. His mother had presented him with this one. He had been far too high to play it on the night she gave it to him, and she had pretended she wasn't crying. She had loved Tchaikovsky.

He gazed at the violin, remembered the warmth of it beneath his chin. Music made sense, music and criminals. Those were the only two things that always made sense, had always made sense to him. It had been that violin…that violin and the death of Carl Powers that had saved his life, given him purpose, and while he hadn't been able to abandon the drugs outright, they had slowly become a smaller and smaller part of his life, superseded by case work.

He had begun to think that the love of John Watson had, finally, truly eclipsed that part of him. John filled a void in him, one that he'd been born with. Childlike wonder had filled it at first, classifying bugs, dissecting plants, measuring ripples in a puddle –something he had recognized as advanced physics before most children could spell their own names. He hadn't learned to read until he was nine, and even then only because he realised that there were books full of things more interesting than puppies and fire-fighters. There were books about Pythagoras and Newton. He had learned to read in a week.

That had faded quickly. By age thirteen he felt that he already knew everything there was to know about the world. The ennui had crept up on him like a cancer, silently, and before he even realized it, he had started destroying things. Small things at first, tearing off shirt buttons, dropping plates on purpose, but then he had set the lawn on fire and mummy had insisted on a psychiatrist. ADHD, anorexia, schizoid personality disorder, clinical depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, autism, Asperser's, manic-depressive bipolar disorder, pyromania, six flavours of psychosis. He had been medicated, and wrongfully medicated, and that had only made it worse.

_He'll never be properly functional, Mrs. Holmes, he's clearly sociopathic._

He had traded the pills for morphine in a darkened dormitory at boarding school, and that had been…glorious. His fingers tingled at the memory of that first high. Morphine made it all go away; it had shut out everything that didn't matter and finally, _finally_ there had been breathing room in his brain. He could progress slowly through the particulars of his own circulatory system, if he wished, he could memorize a face without wondering at the sediment he might find in the pores. It was on morphine that he had first plucked the strings of a violin and felt the sound pierce through the fog and suddenly, he was _awake_.

He had learned to read music in a single afternoon, and was playing Bach by the end of that same week. Never once had the same song bored him, but never was it quite enough, either. He could play until his neck bled – and he had - but his brain would never quite be satisfied. He had learned to focus, but there was never enough to focus on. He had craved direction like most people craved food, and cocaine made even dirt seem interesting, seem worthy of study. He had developed an incredible encyclopaedic knowledge of dirt over the next few months.

But cocaine wasn't cheap. He couldn't swap a few prescription bottles for cocaine.

_Father overreacted, Sherlock, if I'd known this would happen..._

He rolled onto his side and glowered at the wallpaper. Now he had nothing. The case didn't make sense, the violin didn't make sense, and John…

John had lost faith in him. John couldn't see him as anything but a fearsome, calculating machine, one that was quite possibly malfunctioning. Maybe he had never seen anything more than that, maybe Sherlock had been deluding himself when he started to hope that John, at last, truly knew him, the way no-one else ever had.

So what use was he to John now? John was dazzled by his genius, content to follow as long as Sherlock was there to lead. And Sherlock was nothing now. He was without purpose.

He had nothing, and it couldn't get worse. It couldn't.


	5. Doctors and Dosages

AN: Remind me to wipe my search history after I'm finished with this fanfiction. Here are some research gems from the writing of this chapter alone: chemical formula for cocaine, insufflation of cocaine, injection of cocaine, cocaine overdose, oral morphine, intravenous morphine, psychological effects of morphine, recreational use of morphine, anti-opiates, morphine overdose, Naloxone, oral Naloxone, intravenous Naloxone, Naloxone nasal spray.

That's not even all of them. My flatmates must think I'm a hell of a junkie.

* * *

><p>John shook his head abruptly and closed his eyes again, but he felt no more relaxed than he had when he had snapped awake a moment ago. Waking up throughout the night was a routine matter, and had been even before the tour in Afghanistan, but then, Sherlock had the same problem. The thing is, when Sherlock couldn't sleep, he was loud: showers, violin, breaking glass, he would do whatever he found necessary to entertain himself. Yet for the last four hours there had been absolute silence, and what should have been a relief was decidedly unnerving.<p>

_He's just pouting._

Probably, but what if he wasn't? He sighed. Tick-tock tick-tock. He was wound too tightly to go back to sleep now anyway. Though it might be against his better judgment, it wasn't going to harm anything just to check. He dragged himself off the mattress and down the stairs. His stomach rumbled briefly as his bare feet crossed the sticky linoleum of the kitchen floor but he pointedly ignored it.

Now he faced a dilemma. Sherlock's door was locked. How could he knock on his flatmate's door in the middle of the night and inquire as to his well-being without sounding like he was after a cuddle? He had to get Sherlock to come to him. He edged out of the corridor and back to the kitchen and made an entirely unnecessary fuss with some crinkly packages. Waited. Nothing. He tried something louder, banged some pans around. Still nothing. Now he was growing legitimately concerned. Sherlock was a light sleeper, and in spite of his own habits, he routinely shouted at John for disturbing him. Deciding to risk it, he turned the corner back to the door and pounded on it matter-of-factly.

Still nothing.

"Sherlock!"

Silence.

"Sherlock, I dunno what you're doing, but open your door or I'm breaking it." He was overreacting, he knew it, but he couldn't help it, he didn't care. _Something's wrong_.

"Sherlock!" He slammed the door again with his palms, once more for good measure, then set his shoulder against it. This wasn't a deadbolt, just a flimsy interior lock, and he hardly had to shove for it to buckle with a loud snap, sending him skittering, off-balance, through the doorframe.

His heart stopped, and suddenly he couldn't draw breath. _Fuck me for being right_.

Sherlock was curled on the floor, pale as ice and convulsing slightly. His eyes were wide, glassy, and even in the flood of light from the door, his pupils were hardly visible, swallowed up by the blue of his irises.

John crossed the room in an instant and was on his knees. His trembling hand fumbled desperately for his friend's throat, searching for a pulse, but Sherlock seized violently at John's touch on his skin. John gripped his shoulders, trying holding him down, but not daring to risk laying him flat on his back for fear that he would choke.

It had to be an overdose. Not cocaine. Morphine, then, going by the pupil contraction and the seizure. Injected, going by the vivid purple track marks on his bare arm. John's hands shook. He had a hospital-grade OD kit in the stairway cupboard with activated charcoal, Naloxone, sedatives, anti-psychotics, he had brought it home almost as a joke, a hollow warning to Sherlock about his then long-dead habit. That kit seemed miles away now. It would only take him a few breathless seconds to get it, but that meant leaving the room.

"Sherlock," he panted, not even sure if his flatmate could hear him, "I have to get the Naloxone. I'm not leaving you, I'm not going anywhere, I just need the kit. Sherlock…"

He was suddenly very still. John squeezed his shoulders harder. "Sherlock!"

No no no no. He had stopped breathing. Christ.

With a frantic, panicked urgency, he pushed Sherlock flat on his back, turned up his chin, pinched his nose and pressed his mouth over Sherlock's unresponsive lips. He was frozen there for an impenetrable instant. He felt that he could hardly draw enough air to exhale, but he tried, tried fervently. He managed three shaky breaths. Knew it was supposed to be two and then chest compressions, but he couldn't remember the rhythm, was afraid that his breathing had been too shallow to matter, afraid to do it incorrectly. But he felt the rapid, uneven fluttering beneath Sherlock's ribs and tried anyway, tried to imagine a metronome, knowing that his heart could fail. _God_, he lamented, _what kind of doctor are you? How can you not know how to do this? He's going to die, because you can't remember how to do the fucking chest compressions._

He had cradled Sherlock's head for another breath when finally he convulsed again, but not a seizure this time, a ragged, halting gasp. Overcome with relief, John's head dropped for a moment against Sherlock's, but he was displaced by the subsequent fit of violent coughing. He was even more hesitant to leave now, but he _had_ to get the kit. He wasn't stable, he could stop breathing again, worse, go into full cardiac arrest. He needed the Naloxone injection immediately, but John felt somehow that his presence was keeping his friend alive, that if he tore his eyes away for so much as a second, he would return to find Sherlock cold and motionless. With a quick, binding half-embrace, John leapt to his feet and ran back through the kitchen to the stairwell.

Every motion, each step, the twist of the knob and the turn of the door was an agonizing eternity, no part of him could move fast enough to escape the scalding of his frustration. What was all this shit in the cupboard that he had to dig through? Why did they have all this? He flung cushions and blankets and cleaning supplies out of the way, groping blindly for the nylon packet. It seemed to be taking hours, and while he sat here fumbling around in the cupboard, Sherlock could be dying, could be gone already. He realised suddenly why he couldn't see properly and stopped, panting. He gathered up the crumpled sleeve of his pyjama shirt and wiped the tears from his eyes.

And there it was. He snatched it and skidded back to the bedroom. Sherlock was still there, still breathing, though rapidly.

He threw the kit to the floor near Sherlock's head, crouched and unzipped it loudly. He tipped out the charcoal – wouldn't be much use, he hadn't swallowed it - and dug for the anti-opiate. Having a syringe in his hands finally made him feel steady, feel like a professional. He tapped the vial, knocking any bubbles to the top, uncapped the syringe, punched the needle through the cap then drew up the plunger. Another tap, couldn't be too careful, bubbles could be dangerous, especially when he was in a state like this.

He lifted Sherlock's quivering arm, guiding it into the path of light from the hallway, and pressed his left thumb into his blue-tinted bicep, blocking the vein until it stood out sickeningly in the scarred bend of his elbow. He was careful, well-practiced, but he missed the vein twice; once slightly too far to the left, once straight through, in too deep. Sherlock's veins were very small, he wondered why the hell he had chosen to inject. It was morphine, for God's sake, he could have easily taken the pills and dispensed with the frustration and damage of the veins collapsing. He found the right place, finally, and pushed the plunger. He felt Sherlock tense slightly against him as the solution sank into his arm. It must burn. John didn't know, he had never needed it.

Thirty seconds to a minute before it took effect, he remembered. He pulled Sherlock's head onto his lap, careful to keep him rolled to one side, knowing that he may still vomit, and John wasn't keen on scraping his throat out. The silence between them weighed on him like the ocean in his ears as the seconds ticked by.

Fifteen seconds. He was waiting for something to happen. What? He knew Sherlock wouldn't suddenly jump to his feet, animated and back to his old self. So what was he waiting for?

Thirty seconds. Something should be happening right now, surely? There were signs he could check for, pulse, pupil dilation, body temperature, muscle rigidity, but he knew that all of that should stabilize, _would_ stabilize. He was alive, after all, he was breathing, and he would almost certainly make it now that the injection was done with, but he wanted something to let him know that _Sherlock_ was still there.

Forty-five seconds. Wake up. Come back, please. Don't leave me. His fingers were tangled in Sherlock's damp curls, afraid of letting him go.

One full minute. _Agony._

Finally, at a minute and eighteen seconds, Sherlock's eyes drifted closed. His pained breathing was slow, but deep and steady. His hand twitched, then moved, crept up until his fingers brushed John's knee. _Yes, it's me, Sherlock_.

"Can you hear me?"

His brow furrowed and his lips parted slightly.

"You don't have to talk." His voice would be rough, cracked. It was the sort of thing that John knew would embarrass him far more than seizing on the floor.

He didn't, but his hand tapped John's leg again. Suddenly, he drew up his knees slightly and choked, heaving like he was going to be sick. He hadn't eaten today, so he was mercifully spared the indignity. John's fingers brushed gently through his hair until he relaxed again.

"Alright?" Hardly a whisper.

He nodded faintly.

"We're going to stay here on the floor for a moment," John explained, quietly but not quite calmly. He was trying to be Doctor Watson, but he was too overwhelmed by John for now. "When you feel well enough I'm going to bring you up onto your bed. I'll go back to my room – I'll be quick, I promise – and get my mobile to call you an ambulance. The Naloxone can cause withdrawal-like symptoms immediately and you need to be supervised – "

"John." His voice was barely a breath, warm on his thigh. "Stay here."

"I'm just going to go to my room, I'll be back. And I'll go with you to the hospital – " They wouldn't let him past the waiting room, he wasn't family, but still.

"No."

"Sherlock – "

"No, John." He took a few slow, urgently needed breaths. "You're my doctor."

John licked his lips as the blood pounded in his ears. This went against everything he knew; it was just about the least professional way to handle this situation, but it seemed better somehow. Better this way. Better that they were together. "Okay."


	6. Pasts and Epiphanies

AN: I don't know why I do this to myself, but I keep taking names I love (Vincent) and making them into the worst characters, so then I associate them with all this negativity. Look at me being clever. Anyway, time to liven up your Monday afternoon with everyone's favorite recovering drug addict!

Thanks for reading, and I love it when you leave reviews, so don't be shy.

* * *

><p>He seemed to weigh nothing, far less than a healthy adult should, less than John did, in spite of being six inches shorter. John had always known how thin he was, he never ate, but what had seemed a smooth, wiry elegance in waking life now seemed a terrible frailty. If he set him down too abruptly on the bed he might break.<p>

Now reasonably sure that Sherlock was not about to be sick, John laid him gently on his back, but as he stepped away to fetch a chair for his intended vigil, Sherlock's hand caught his wrist weakly.

"This isn't a hospital, remember?" His voice sounded stronger, but somehow John knew not to buy his attempt at crassness. He was still afraid, his nearness to death still cold beneath his skin. John looked away pensively for a moment, but whether or not the situation was appropriate seemed a trifling concern under the circumstances. He was needed, truly needed, and it was no time to be worried about particulars. He wedged a few pillows at an angle between the headboard and mattress and gently lifted Sherlock's head so he could shimmy up onto the bed. Still handling him with the utmost care, he pulled his friend up tightly against him, Sherlock's hips between John's bent knees, his head near his collarbone, and both exhaled in unison, in relief, in exhaustion.

"You might feel muscle cramps, anxiety," he murmured, his mouth thrumming close to Sherlock's ear, "I gave you an opiate antagonist drug, everyone reacts differently. If you feel you can't breathe properly, for the love of god, just tell me, I can give you a second dose." Speaking aloud was calming for him, reassuring. He was relieved that _he_ knew something about this. For once, he could tell Sherlock something to help him. Regardless of whether or not he already knew all this, which he probably did, it made John feel important. "Get some sleep, if you can."

"John?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

He managed the faintest shade of a smile, knowing what Sherlock was really thanking him for. "Well, I am your doctor."

Sherlock grew quiet and John kept his hand resting on Sherlock's chest, for the reassurance of knowing his heartbeat and the pattern of his breathing. That rhythm was the only music John needed, for in spite of his lingering anxiety, he was the very definition of exhausted. Spent. Overused.

Drifting slowly, he slipped into the familiar state of vertigo that floated at the edges of sleep, that space like falling, but it wasn't the expected hypnagogic twitch that startled him back to wakefulness, it was the sudden stirring against him. His stomach leapt into his throat, instantly on the alert, but he relaxed slightly as he took stock, remembered that Sherlock was okay. Sherlock was breathing and sleeping and stable. But that whimpering sound...that worried him. Was he in pain?

"Sherlock?"

"Don't touch me." His voice was a growl, but pleading, cracking with something that sounded suspiciously like fear.

_What?_ John squirmed, trying to move away, but he knew that it was something else that was so clearly upsetting him.

In spite of his pitiful weakness, Sherlock was shaking violently, teeth clenched, his whole body as stiff as glass, and his throat quivered with what could only have been a sob.

"Fuck you, Vincent, no! _No!_" He had never heard Sherlock swear like that. Even his voice sounded strange, not like himself at all. Flecks of lamplight from the open door sparked warm on his pale face. He was crying; his sharp cheekbones lined with thin, glinting rivulets.

John's throat tightened. "Sherlock, it's okay, you're dreaming," he whispered urgently, his lips pressed to Sherlock's sweat-dampened temple as he tried to hold him still. He felt hot, possibly feverish. "Wake up."

"Let me up!" He was sobbing, _screaming_. "Stop, get off!"

"Sherlock! Wake up!"

His eyes snapped open with a start and he slumped back against John's chest. He could tell that the heavy panting was wracking him with pain, but he was desperately out of breath.

John held him tightly, unnerved and alrmed, as his rapid gasping slowly subsided.

What was that?

Vincent? Who was Vincent? What was –

No.

_No._

Oh my god.

John didn't speak a word, didn't dare to, only tightened his grip and listened to the rush of his own pulse in the silence.

He was never meant to have known this. No wonder. _No wonder._ You idiot. You fucking idiot, what have you done? His heart pounded, hypnotically, disbelievingly, _oh-god, oh-god, oh-god_.

Sherlock wasn't even quite fully awake, and for that the good doctor was somewhat grateful. John held him until the twitching and the squirming calmed, then put his hand back over Sherlock's chest and waited for him to fall asleep again, dread writhing somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

He then noticed, with considerable alarm, the dark path of blood trickling from Sherlock's nose.

* * *

><p>Well, he was sore, but that made sense. Even breathing hurt. He tried to swallow the cottony feeling in his mouth, but it persisted stubbornly. He had decided to lie still for a while, to let John get a bit more sleep, but clearly John had already beaten him to that idea. He could tell by his friend's breathing that he was awake, and by his barely-stifled fidgeting that he was uncomfortable. He had probably lost circulation to a leg, but was too noble to move it. Sherlock let him have his moment. With a sigh and a slight twist that made his head throb, he made a bit of a show of revealing to John that yes, he was awake, and that the good doctor could now freely reposition his prickling feet, which he promptly did.<p>

"You alright?" He wondered sleepily.

"Relatively speaking." His voice was hoarse, but that seemed to make little difference now. John's hand reached down to press a finger to his neck, taking his pulse. It was shaking slightly.

"Do you feel hungry?"

Sherlock shook his head slowly. They sat in silence for a few long moments, John absent-mindedly stroking Sherlock's hair, neither minding. It was strangely soothing, this. In spite of the war raging behind his eyes and his stiff muscles, having his head caressed was…well, it was pleasant. He decided immediately that would have strangled anyone other than John if they had tried it.

"What?" Sherlock demanded suddenly.

John could only stare. "Nothing, what are you – "

"You're clearly concerned, but you're not scolding me yet, nor are you demanding to know where I keep the rest of my stash. I'm recovering and now would be the perfect time to do so, yet you don't. You want to say something else to me but you're afraid to. What is it?"

John licked his lips. He could be as weak as a kitten, but Sherlock was still Sherlock, always on top of things.

"It's nothing, it's not important." He dismissed, dropping his forehead to rest on his friend's thick curls.

"It was important enough to keep you up all night," he retaliated, his voice reverberating through John's chest.

"Just drop it, go back to sleep."

"No."

"Sherlock, please, we're both coping with enough right now."

"And one of us is clearly coping poorly. Tell me."

He was silent for a long moment. He didn't know how to put words to any of what had been ruminating in his overtired mind for the last several hours. There was certainly no way to say any of it tactfully, but perhaps he could at least -

"_Tell me_."

"I know what happened to you." He blurted, clamping his mouth shut and swallowing apologetically. Smooth, that. Sherlock stiffened, but did not respond. The rest sort of tumbled out. "I know about this Vincent and…what he did... I mean, I have a good idea. You were talking in your sleep, and I kept waking you up, but you kept having the same dream, you kept… talking, and form what you said and how you…you acted, it wasn't difficult to figure out. I mean…" he had to stop to draw breath, tipping his head back against the headboard. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, god, I'm so sorry. I know it's not something you wanted me to know about, and I don't blame you –"

"No, John." He muttered, sounding slightly surprised, but not upset. "No…it's fine."

John nodded slowly, it was all he could do.

"You want to know what happened."

"I – no, no, you don't need to talk about it, I know you don't want to."

"John," he repeated, "It's fine. Ask."

He cleared his throat, then, quietly, "how old were you?"

"The first time? Seventeen."

_The first time?_ "Did you know him?"

"He was my flatmate. Briefly." John's heart sped. He wondered if he should back off a little, he was handling Sherlock rather…intimately. "You weren't living at home then?"

"Father turned me out. After Mycroft told him that I'd been taking Mummy's jewellery to sell for drugs."

"Had you been?"

"Not exactly, but...well, technicalities. Effectively, yes." John didn't press the matter.

"How? Was he a friend?"

"He was my dealer." Sherlock smirked slightly.

"How old was he?"

"Twenty-eight." He involuntarily gripped Sherlock's shoulders a little tighter.

"And…it happened…more than once."

"Routinely. It's not like I had an income." John felt the blood draining from his face. Sherlock, the same Sherlock lying on top of him, had spent at least some brief period of his life trading sex – against his will - for rent and cocaine. He wasn't sure how to handle that realisation.

"Have you –" his voice cracked, thinking, of course, as doctors tend to think. "You have had yourself tested since then right?"

"For STI's? Yes."

"And?"

"Clean."

"Good." He re-played that last question in his head and balked. "I mean, not good that...well, it's good for you...I mean, it's not relevant to me personally. I'm not implying –"

"I know what you mean."

He paused, he knew that Sherlock could feel how quickly his heart was pounding, but Sherlock himself seemed relatively calm. "So...that's why you don't take rape cases."

He turned awkwardly to give John a sidelong look. "That? No, not at all. My reasons are exactly what I told you and Lestrade. Before tonight I had, in fact, thoroughly deleted all of that from my memory, but the trauma to my brain seems to have undone all my hard work." He sighed. Technically, it wasn't quite a lie. "I was trying for a cognitive reset, morphine is good for that, but I seem to have lost track of my tolerance after all this time." But he _was_ good at lying, when he needed to be.

John had to fight to wrap his head around this. He could understand wanting to repress a memory like that, but to forget it completely? To the extent that examining a rape victim wouldn't dredge it back up? That was extraordinary in a lot of ways. Too extraordinary. Even for Sherlock. He didn't buy it.

"So…when you said earlier that you'd had sex…" John swallowed bitterly, "what you…actually meant was that you had been repeatedly raped as a teenager."

"What? No. That wasn't rape."

John was taken aback. "What the bloody hell do you mean it wasn't rape? Consenting people don't cry and scream in their sleep because of - "

"You have to _actually_ say no for it to be rape."

"But you - "

"I was far too high to say much of anything at the time."

"But you didn't want it!"

"Of course not."

"Then it was rape!"

"It wasn't –" Sherlock suddenly sat bolt upright. His head spun, but the tiny flashes of electricity firing in his brain were relatively unaffected. "Oh!"

"What?" John was so exasperated he could hardly bring himself to ask.

"It wasn't rape, John."

"Yes, you said that. I disagree.

"No, John, not me, the case! The girls! They weren't raped!"

John's jaw went slightly slack. "Regarding that, Sherlock, I_ strongly_ disagree. Are you still a bit loopy? They _were_ raped, I did the examination!"

"They were made to look as though they'd been raped, but they weren't." His hands had drifted up near his ears as his over-tired brain switched into high gear. "I knew it, I _knew_ something was wrong! This is it!"

John stared, still incredulous. There was no way that this was right. "There was _semen_, Sherlock!"

"But it didn't match anyone in the police database, correct? That's why nobody's been arrested yet. All that DNA evidence, should have been easy, but nothing. A brutally violent serial child rapist, and he's never been arrested before? Oh come on, rapists don't just jump in, who sets out to be a rapist? Most start off as voyeurs, peeping in restrooms, they work their way up to bigger crimes, and odds are, sooner or later somebody catches them doing something indecent enough to get them arrested. Yet this time, nobody did. A violent paedophile just sprouted up out of the ground in Hyde Park? Doesn't happen. This criminal isn't a rapist, these weren't rape-motivated crimes. God, I was so distracted, how could I not have seen it before? I need more data."

He pushed himself up off the bed, but he had overestimated his compromised strength. He sank to his knees almost immediately, panting, and before he could make another attempt to get up, his stomach turned and he gasped out a few more dry convulsions before dropping his head to the floor, utterly spent.

"You're impossible," John growled, but with an edge of tenderness. Somehow, he was relieved, both at Sherlock's apparent recovery and at the notion that they might be finally moving on from this whole matter. He rolled off the bed and dropped to his haunches beside Sherlock's ailing form.

"If I help you to the sofa so you can look over the files, will you eat breakfast?"

Sherlock groaned.

"It's just toast and tea."

"Fine." His voice was muffled by the floor.

"Alright then, I'll hold you to it. Come on." Small victories.


	7. Toast and Victory

AN: And once again, the detective is deducing, the doctor is doctoring, and John Watson is being rather pathetically Forever Alone. You'll see what I mean.

Enjoy!

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><p>Sherlock barely registered John's anticipatory hovering as he pored over the first girl's file. He had been standing there for at least a minute and a half, but his concern seemed comparatively irrelevant. <em>Her hand, the bruising, the sheet, the location<em>, it was all resolving, all solidifying in his mind into clear, definite points. He had directions, things to investigate; now there was just –

Something cool and smooth poked him in the face. His head jerked away, causing an insufferable pounding, and he looked up to see that John – eyes narrowed and lips pursed – had literally shoved the plate of toast into his face until it bumped his cheek.

"John –" he sighed, exasperated.

"Don't start." He snapped, but without much fervour, "I dragged you out here, I can drag you back to your room, now eat the toast."

Sherlock looked away dismissively, but John, with clockwork precision, set the plate of toast on Sherlock's thigh, grabbed him by the back of the hand, and forcibly curled his fingers around a red mug of tea. "As your doctor, I order you to ingest that before moving on with this investigation." He carefully cleared a piece of floor and plunked down unceremoniously to keep watch while Sherlock pouted about eating his toast. "So, what's your idea then?" He asked, hoping that if Sherlock got to ranting he would eat simply out of agitation, since he wasn't able to pace without extraordinary effort. "If not rape, then what?"

"John, you saw the bruises on the third girl, they weren't haloed, were they? Just dark patches."

"Sounds about right, yeah."

"And the other two, based on the photos, looks like the same thing."

"Yep."

Sherlock looked at him expectantly, as though he was supposed to be picking up on this already, but when John just stared blankly he continued. "Look at the first girl. Her left hand was smashed." He flipped over the photograph nearest him so that John could glance at it. "There's yellowing and faint halos around the bruises, which means her hand swelled after it was broken."

"That does tend to happen with trauma that severe." he agreed hesitantly, fearing that he was missing something that Sherlock found terribly obvious, as usual.

"_But...?_" Sherlock prompted, raising his eyebrows.

He scowled, ready to shrug and let Sherlock lay it out for him when suddenly it clicked. "But the rest of the bruises didn't swell," he announced triumphantly, "blood pooled because of the capillary damage, but there was no arterial blood flow to them when they were made. No blood pressure, no heartbeat, so...the...victims were already dead?" He was sure, but he added a question mark as insurance. Couldn't make too many intellectual assertions with Sherlock in the room.

"Exactly. Same with the welts. They look like they were made with a stick or a riding crop; they broke the skin, but caused almost no bleeding, obviously, no blood pressure." He took a satisfied bite of the toast. Sweet, dry, crunchy victory for John.

"So they were all beaten after they were dead, except the first girl's left hand. How does that make a difference?"

He chased the toast with a sip of tea and continued. "It makes a great deal of difference. It means the murderer to no pleasure in seeing them hurt. He smashed the girl's one hand but then decided to kill her and the others before doing the rest of the damage. For some reason he wanted them to look really beat up when the police found them, but didn't want to torture them. That's why there was so much damage to the face, but less to the rest of the body. Seems to me that a rapist, someone who thinks his victim is beautiful, wouldn't smash her up like that. The sheet suggests the same thing. They were neither raped nor murdered _on_ the sheets they were found in, none of them were, the only bloodstains are minimal and match perfectly to their body positions when they were unwrapped. The first was blue and well-worn, the other two were white and brand new. The one we found yesterday still had the factory anti-stain coating on it, so it had never even been washed. I suspect the same of number two. That means that the killer didn't just wrap them in the sheets he killed them on for convenience, he pre-emptively bought new sheets, for them specifically, and when he was finished with the girls, he very carefully wrapped up their bodies and got rid of them. Why not just use the bin liner? It's convenient, practically untraceable. No, this killer felt remorse. This killer didn't kill for the sake of killing, he had some ulterior motive that he was forced to kill in order to achieve." He was now almost through an entire piece of toast. John was practically ecstatic.

"So what about the rapes then? You can't tell me that someone who couldn't stomach seeing them in pain could bring himself to rape three little children?"

He picked up John's medical report of the last victim, then stretched out his hand to grab the stack that contained the other two. He couldn't quite reach and was about to stand up from the sofa, but John rushed to pick it up first and hand it over. "Thank you. Now, I notice that your report is slightly more precise than these other two, John, commendable, I seem to be rubbing off on you. Anyway, the other two reports say…" he flipped a few pages, "'minor vaginal trauma' and 'vaginal trauma consistent with sexual assault.' Yours says…" he rifled a bit more, "'superficial tears to the hymen membrane,' very telling indeed." John didn't like being reminded of having to write those words, but he nodded. "Yet, in spite of the violent treatment of the rest of the bodies, that was it as far as sexual injuries? There was no damage to the cervix, nothing more serious than a few minor tears? Odd, don't you think?"

"I suppose." Odder that Sherlock had such detailed knowledge of the female reproductive system. It seemed like something he would have chosen to delete.

"And virtually no blood at all?"

"Correct."

"The rape was post-mortem as well, John, and I don't even think it was truly rape. I think someone used a foreign object and then the syringe method."

John could hardly keep his mouth from gaping. "Why on earth would someone do that? Why would they go out of their way to leave DNA evidence that we could easily find?"

"Because The DNA in the bodies is not the DNA of our killer. He –" he stopped pointedly, "or _she_ was trying very hard indeed to throw us off the true motive for the crime."

John had to look away for a moment to process that. Could anyone really be so conniving?

"There's a connection between them, something obvious, something the killer knew we would find out if not for the rape aspect. We need to go to Scotland Yard," Sherlock insisted, "I need to talk to Lestrade, I'm sure he has more data for me by now."

"Wait, wait, hold on." John waved off his attempts to gather up the files, "You're in no state to be going anywhere. You're unsteady on your feet and you look – objectively – like a complete wreck. What about the tip-off letter? Isn't that what he's expecting anyway?"

"This is too important for a damn tip-off letter!" Sherlock growled, clearly frustrated.

"Fine, phone him up then, I'll get your mobile." He pried himself off the floor with some difficulty and turned back to the bedroom.

"No, I need to be there. If I phone him he'll ask me to come in anyway. If I send you he'll just start asking asinine questions, you'll have to phone me, it'll be a mess." He resumed gathering up the files, eager to look urgent, but trying to hide the fact that walking or even standing in his compromised state was a considerable effort.

"Sherlock…" he warned knowingly, feeling more and more like a parent, "you should be in a hospital. You should be on monitors and pure oxygen and bed rest, yet against my better judgment you're here in our flat eating toast. I don't know how you convinced me to let you stay here, but you did, and so be it, but I absolutely am not taking you to Scotland Yard."

Score for John Watson today: two whole pieces of toast and the avoidance of a dangerous and undignified outing. He should save Sherlock's life more often; it seemed to give him some fleeting semblance of authority. He swallowed and shivered off the thought of his friend's icy pale face, deciding against that solution.

"John…" The sudden, hopeless agony in Sherlock's voice turned his heart on end. "This is important, this work…this is what I live for, and if I can't –" his voice cracked, trailed off.

John was suddenly furious. Knew he was acting, knew it was all bluster and crocodile tears, but it got right to the core of him nonetheless. He chewed the inside of his cheek in frustration. He was slowly coming to the realisation that when Sherlock wanted something from him, he couldn't refuse. No matter how sure he was of the right thing to do, Sherlock had an unexplainable, unrelenting power over him, and he was now exercising it to its fullest potential. He desperately cast around for conditions to tack on to his consent. He was going down, but not without a fight.

"You…have to shower. And you have to eat more than toast. And you can't complain about having to lean on me the whole way." He knew the demands were half-hearted, but it was the best he could come up with on short notice.

Sherlock smiled. "Do I ever?"

John shook his head, furious. The game, it seemed, was on once again. Whether he liked it or not.

"What I want to know," he mused, loudly, over the rush of the shower as he stood leaning against the door –closed, but not locked, at John's insistence, "Is how a serial killer gets a hold of some other bloke's spunk for use in red herring tactics. It's not like you just find the stuff lying around."

Sherlock didn't answer immediately, but after a few seconds the tap shut off. "Oh, I would beg to differ, John." He said matter-of-factly. "When was the last time you emptied your rubbish bin?"

John's face flushed pink and he vowed to keep his mouth shut. He'd embarrassed himself enough for one morning.


	8. Quips and Violins

The zipper tab of John's jacket tapped intermittently at the file folder in his hand as his thigh bounced slightly. He had never known a lift to take so long, but stairs were hardly an option. Sherlock had managed the short walk from 221B to the curb side and likewise the stroll from the street to Scotland Yard without much difficulty, but John felt him leaning slightly now. He was seriously considering reconsidering this venture when the chime finally sounded over his head, drawing his gaze upward for a moment. The doors slid open with a hiss.

"Christ, you look like the walking dead. More than usual, I mean."

Definitely should have stayed home.

"Afternoon, Anderson." Sherlock drawled, his voice smooth as silk. John cleared his throat. It was too late now, he couldn't make any show of trying to escape, he would never live it down. He gripped Sherlock's forearm, determined that if he was going to stumble in front of anyone, it wouldn't be Anderson, and they edged into the suddenly-uncomfortably-small lift with the abrasive forensics expert.

Anderson sipped his coffee loudly. He knew that it was a notion born of cynicism, but John's immediate assumption was that he was doing it on purpose, just to irritate them. He knew by the set of Sherlock's teeth that it was making his head ache. "So really, what _is_ wrong with you?" Anderson demanded. Sherlock pointedly said nothing, his eyes fixed on the door.

John glanced over and felt his mouth constricting involuntarily. Anderson looked more dishevelled than usual, like he hadn't changed his clothes since the day before, and he was busy twisting a kink out of his neck as he stood glaring at Sherlock.

_Don't say it_, he scolded himself, _be the bigger person._

"Sherlock's a bit ill today," he stated flatly.

"Oh, I do hope it's serious," Anderson smirked, "at least then _you_ could move on to better prospects." The lift stopped, dinged softly and Anderson took a step toward the door just as it began to open.

Sherlock, astonishingly, remained silent.

But that was the line, Anderson had crossed it. John couldn't help but smile as he opened his mouth. "How was the doghouse, Anderson?" He inquired, more loudly than was strictly necessary, relishing the look of shock on the man's face as he turned back to regard his unexpected antagonist. "I guess you're wishing you had invested in a more comfortable sofa. By the way, I promise I won't tell anyone that you were hitting on me. I'm sure Sally and Mrs. Anderson would _both_ kill you."

Sherlock's head swivelled like a hawk until he was staring, wide-eyed at John. The smile that crept over his face was the incarnation of amazed, childlike awe, as though John had just revealed himself to be Batman. Had he been a lesser person, Sherlock might have been unable to resist the urge to kiss him full on the mouth. John flicked the case file casually to his head in salute as he brushed past Anderson, only to nearly collide with Sally Donovan as she approached the doors.

She sneered, dark eyes fixed on John, clearly having overheard the whole thing. "What side of whose bed did you wake up on this morning?" She demanded, and he was surprised to hear an air of something like amusement in her voice. She was almost impressed. Almost.

Sherlock cracked, and John couldn't resist joining in, not caring in the least that they both looked like complete idiots, overcome with giggles in the middle of Scotland Yard. At least Sherlock was no longer the only one leaning for support.

* * *

><p>Lestrade kept lowering the file to glance across the desk critically as Sherlock laid out his latest theory. John could see from his expression the exact moment when he comprehended the phrase "post-mortem bruising," then "simulated sexual assault" then "alternate source of genetic material," each with increasing confusion. Even after he had heard and dissected Sherlock's spiel he remained silent for a moment, processing.<p>

He raised his eyebrows in John's direction. "You agree with all this?"

John looked to Sherlock. "I trust his analysis." Even if he was recovering from a massive opiate overdose.

"I'm not sure if this is more or less depraved than our original assumption," he sighed, tipping his head back and massaging his temples. "But at least the poor girls didn't suffer as much as we thought. I suppose that's something. So…" he dropped his forearms onto the desk and considered the duo directly, "where do we go from here?"

"Musical instruments." Sherlock had begun explaining this to John in the cab, an attempt at keeping the blank stares and disruptive questions to a minimum.

"Musical instruments?" Lestrade repeated, "Sherlock, plenty of kids play musical instruments, what makes you think that's a motive for murder?"

"It wasn't an immediate connection, but I started to wonder when I saw the third girl's hand. She played a string instrument, something with a bow, she smelled like rosin, but not a violin or a viola, so probably a cello."

"Why not a violin or viola?"

Sherlock leaned forward, shrugged his shoulder out of his coat and pulled his shirt collar away from his neck, revealing a dark, oblong, slightly reddish patch. John could see many years' worth of scarring beneath it. "The violin is a cruel mistress," he sighed, "Anyone who plays avidly would have that mark, no such scars on the third girl, but the first…" He retrieved the photo of the girl from the file and flipped it over for Lestrade to see. "It's hard to see because of the marks from the strangulation, but there's clearly a callous, it's a different texture from the bruising." He tapped the photo and handed it over the desk. "And you don't get that kiss from a grudging hour of practice after school every day, this girl was serious, possibly a prodigy, the cellist as well, her hands were marked from the strings and likewise badly calloused."

"And the violinist's hand," Lestrade remembered suddenly, "her left hand was crushed, none of the others had broken hands." He narrowed his eyes, "hold on, I'm having a moment of brilliance." He dug in his pocket and retrieved his phone, dialling quickly and bringing it to his ear.

Only John heard Sherlock mutter "in a manner of speaking."

"Molly? It's Lestrade. You did the toxicity screening on Mackenzie Wallace, right?" There was a pause as he glanced up at Sherlock. "Yes, erm, yes, he asked after you. Sure. Look, this really isn't the time, do you have the report yet? I know there was a rush put on it. Yes. Excellent, read it to me." There was another pause, and John could see the excitement building in the way he tapped his knee. "That's a prescription sleeping medication, right? Well, comparatively. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you, Molly." He hung up, managing to look positively chuffed in spite of his scowl.

"The first girl was drugged, the other two weren't." Sherlock inferred mechanically, pressing his palms together beneath his chin.

"And it was kind of a botched job, seems like. He only used a few sleeping pills, not a real sedative. She must have snapped back when he smashed her hand." Lestrade was on a roll, or so he thought.

"You're still assuming it was a man." Sherlock said disapprovingly.

Lestrade froze, slightly embarrassed as only Sherlock could make him feel. "Well, yeah, I mean, women don't often commit crimes this violent." He shrugged uncomfortably.

"True, but where would a man have gotten a steady supply of donor semen? Couldn't have been his own, would have been far too easy, even for you lot. So, someone else's necessarily. Awkward conversation in the locker room, I imagine." Sherlock smirked, "It's possible, of course, a gay man with a partner or a desperate man with a teenage son, but the killer wouldn't want to implicate someone close to them. A woman, on the other hand, can go to any sperm bank, fill out a bit of trifling paperwork, and walk out with a year's supply of anonymous genetic material. Funnier questions crop up if a man tries the same thing."

Lestrade nodded meditatively. "Okay, so likely a woman, but at any rate, the killer snatched the first girl, intending to drug her and smash her hand, presumably to… stop her playing violin for some reason? But the assailant couldn't keep the girl sedated, had to kill her, and then had to come up with a blind to throw us off the scent. The red herring worked so well, apparently, that the killer repeated the pattern, murdered a few more young musicians, and now here we are puzzling over it."

"Sound analysis," Sherlock congratulated hollowly.

"Wait," John interrupted, "what about the second girl?" Lestrade looked at him dubiously. "The first was a violinist, the third a cellist, what about the second?"

Sherlock was positively glowing with pride. Maybe John wasn't incurably idiotic after all. "Ah, and there's the sticking point." He lowered all but his index fingers. "Not a pianist, going by the fingers, not a wind instrument, going by the lips, not a string instrument, certainly. That's why I need you." He nodded toward the DI "For this theory to follow through there has to be a connection to music with the second girl, Chloe Franklin. We need to talk to her mother."

Lestrade looked hesitant. "I'm not bothering a grieving mother unless you're sure you're onto something."

"You seemed sure when you were chiming in heroically a moment ago," Sherlock pointed out. John had to stop himself from smiling.

Lestrade sighed. John noticed for the first time how tired he looked. He would be the sort to sit up all night fidgeting. He and John were, in many ways, alike. Men of action. Never comfortable to sit idly and let Sherlock puzzle out the details. Both preferred a foot chase and a gun close at hand.

"I'll call the Franklins, tell them we need to collect a bit more information." He conceded, "But I warn you, Sherlock, _behave_. These people have been through enough in the last few weeks, they don't need your… cavalier insensitivity."

Sherlock smirked, sensitivity being hardly his primary concern, but he glanced at John's disapproving visage and straightened up in his seat.

"Understood."


	9. Songs and Stumblings

AN: Chapter 9, in which Sherlock is a child and finally, Lestrade redeems himself.

Let me take a moment to thank all of you who have been so avidly reading, your enthusiasm is very encouraging indeed!

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><p>Sherlock's heart-wrenchingly pitiful state had a profound effect on his appearance, but not in the way you might expect. Where a near-death experience with narcotics and a sleepless night of repressed trauma would tack a few years onto most people, it had the queer consequence of making him look more than a decade younger. Even as familiar as he was with having Sherlock next to him in a taxi, John couldn't shake the feeling that he had spent all morning babysitting an exceptionally tall and snarky twelve-year-old rather than assisting a consulting detective. Sherlock caught him staring.<p>

"Stop that."

"What?"

Sherlock glared.

He licked his lips. "Sorry, you just look so…you look like a little kid."

He scoffed. "Hardly analogous to the actuality of my condition, but Mycroft says the same thing when I'm ill. Irony is, this particular incident has probably taken a few years _off_ my life."

"Don't talk like that." John knew it was true, but he would rather not have acknowledged it.

"Just being realistic," he droned. "Ah, we've arrived." John turned away, bobbing his head to look out the window. The area was nice, looked like a wealthy neighbourhood, if by no other indication than the primness of the topiaries and the freshness and variety of the paint on the doors. He spotted Lestrade's car, sticking with the cruiser this time, a few houses up.

Sherlock nearly lost his footing when he ducked out of the taxi, but a nonchalantly braced hand on the doorframe and he recovered. John paid the cabbie blindly, not daring to take his eyes off his flatmate for fear of him collapsing. He seemed steady, steady enough, but John was wondering for the thousandth time if this was a good idea, if he was truly an awful doctor for agreeing to this. He trailed slightly behind, as usual, but this time he was watching carefully, making sure that the slight slant to the right didn't become a stumble.

Lestrade fell into step smoothly beside Sherlock, but John noticed the sidelong looks at his pallid skin, his bruised and bloodshot eyes, and the now-marked uncertainty of his gait. The frightening thing was that he had actually improved since this morning. "What've you come down with again?" He wondered aloud, and John stiffened slightly, distrustful.

"Strain of the flu," Sherlock hesitated, decided on an amendment, "and an inner ear problem. Doesn't matter."

Lestrade didn't buy it. He had been too distracted by the fresh leads earlier, but now that he saw Sherlock in action, saw his dizziness and his weakness, he knew. John could see the realisation growing firmer behind his eyes and found himself bracing for a confrontation, praying that it would only mean a dismissal and not another drugs bust. A real one this time.

"Yeah, well, don't breathe on me;" the DI growled finally, "I don't want to catch it." The warning was sharp in his tone. John sighed quietly in relief.

"No risk of that, I assure you," Sherlock muttered, and turned to knock on the door. Lestrade stepped in front of him and tapped briskly, apparently deciding that Sherlock wasn't decent enough to make the first impression. They waited in uncomfortable silence.

The door creaked open and in the crack beneath the chain lock peered a pair of large, trembling eyes.

"Erm, Mrs. Franklin?" He flashed his badge, "Detective Inspector Lestrade, New Scotland Yard. I phoned you earlier. This is our, ah, consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, and this is Dr. John Watson, may we have a word please?"

It seemed that the tiny woman's whole body was quivering, like a Chihuahua. John wondered if this level of anxiety was brought on by the death of her daughter a few weeks ago or if it was her normal state of being. "Are they police officers?" She wondered, regarding John's slightly pilled jumper and Sherlock's gaunt and younger-than-life features.

"Ah, not…not exactly," Lestrade began.

"Ma'am, we're professionals," Sherlock reassured her, with an air of smooth confidence that left no doubt of the fact.

The door clicked shut and Lestrade was about to give the "professional" a stern talking-to before he realised that she was just releasing the chain lock. Sherlock smirked, pleased with his own charm.

"Tea?" she mumbled as the three men shuffled past her into the house.

Sherlock, reflexively, said "please," but was trod on solidly by Lestrade's "no, thank you." John Just cleared his throat nervously. The convergence of opinions seemed to overwhelm the nervous woman, because she stopped dead and her eyes darted between them in apparent panic.

John had to come to the rescue. "No tea for now, thanks, Mrs. Franklin, let's just talk, shall we?"

"Oh, yes, certainly," her lips stretched spasmodically, but it was more of a tic than a smile. She led them into the sitting room, looking constantly as though the three men were all braced to pounce upon and devour her like a wounded gazelle. Poor woman really should get some therapy or something.

Sherlock threw himself into the nearest armchair with a bit too much eagerness. Lestrade winced. They couldn't have her thinking they were rude, or more critically, unprofessional, but he was beginning to understand what John had been concerned about for hours. Sherlock was dead on his feet, and barely on them, in a realistic sense. He was taking this case at the expense of his own well-being and Lestrade couldn't bring himself to be angry at him for that. He decided to remain standing to compensate, and John perched hesitantly on the edge of the sofa, only to have Mrs. Franklin sidle up primly beside him.

"I know you've been through a lot of questioning already, Mrs. Franklin, but bear with us if you will," Lestrade offered, by way of an apology. "We really need only one piece of information to move forward."

"What Instrument did your daughter play?" Sherlock interjected impatiently.

"Chloe?" The woman whispered, lips trembling.

"Yes, the de –" John flinched, but mercifully, Sherlock caught himself. "Yes, Chloe Franklin. What instrument did she play?"

"She didn't play an instrument."

Dead. Silence.

Sherlock's face jumped instantaneously from age twelve to age eight, his strained and bloodshot eyes darting anxiously, all his notions suddenly shattered. Lestrade looked over at him desperately, hoping for a redirect, getting nothing. He hadn't even bothered to prepare any questions to fall back on in the event of a negative response; they had all been so fixated on this musical element.

Mrs. Franklin's already-frail constitution seemed scarcely able to handle the sudden tension in the room. She looked first at Sherlock, whose gaze was miles away as he sifted through the masses of information that he had already analyzed and eliminated multiple times. Lestrade was fumbling mentally as well, but concerned though he was about the case, he was more focused at the moment on salvaging the situation and saving face.

Luckily for both of them, John had a contingency plan. "Erm, Mrs. Franklin? I think my colleagues and I will take that tea, if you don't mind." She looked confused, but then realized that he was giving her an out. Thrilled to escape the situation, she gave him another fluttery smile, nodded ardently and fled.

Sherlock's pale hand was clamped tightly to the arm of the sofa. "There has to be something else," he insisted, his voice as flat as his stare.

"Yeah, well, come up with it quick, because I think this woman's head may explode if we don't lay off her." Lestrade grumbled, pen tapping anxiously against the pad on his thigh. "I thought you were sure."

"I am sure," Sherlock hissed. "There's nothing else it could be, not based solely on the bodies and the files, at least. There's no commonality between them except approximate age, location, and string instruments. I swear, Lestrade, if you're keeping something from me…"

"Why would I? I want to solve this as badly as you do!"

"I strongly doubt that."

"Shh!" John tilted his head toward the kitchen to remind them that there was no more than a door and a hallway between the feuding detectives and the woman that they were pronouncedly trying _not_ to alarm. "What if…" John added, "what if the killer made a mistake? What if they were after another girl? One with the same name, or one who looked like Chloe, and they got her by mistake?"

"No," Sherlock growled, "the killer knew these girls somehow, had some obvious connection to the three of them, otherwise there would be no need for such an elaborate blind. No, it's something else, but we're close, we're so close…" he looked around the room in frustration, grasping at straws, clearing his head, starting over, when suddenly his eyes glinted with recognition. "John!" he all but gasped, nodding at something to the doctor's right, immediately within Sherlock's line of vision.

John turned to follow his intent stare. It was just a bookshelf. "What, Sherlock?" He demanded urgently, knowing that their host could return at any moment.

"Sheet music," Lestrade chimed in, pointing to the bottom right corner where a number of thin, flat packets protruded slightly from the rest of the volumes. He tensed, but hesitated. He was unused to moving faster than Sherlock, but the consulting detective made no indication that he was planning on investigating the books himself. John swallowed a pang of anxiety as he remembered the crippling headache that Sherlock was undoubtedly still suffering. He should have brought something, even an over-the-counter painkiller would have helped.

Lestrade had taken the matter into his own hands. He crossed the room and removed a few of the pamphlets. "They're vocal parts, not instrumentals" he announced, his voice tinged with a combination of surprise and relief.

He looked up suddenly to see Mrs. Franklin re-entering the room, only to stop in stunned silence when she saw what he was doing.

"I…I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Franklin, I didn't mean to disturb –"

"You only asked me if she played instruments," she gasped, all but wheezing with anxiety, "I didn't know it was important, she was only in the choir at church, I – "

"No, no, Mrs. Franklin, it's really quite alright," Lestrade fumbled nervously to soothe her, praying that she was not about to drop the tray of teacups she was carrying. "Please, sit down; we just need to determine if this is in any way significant to the case."

Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Nothing about today was going to go smoothly, if the cacophony of razor blades jostling about inside his skull was any indication, and this insufferable woman's shrill voice was hardly improving matters.

After a few more reassurances that she had done nothing wrong, Lestrade and John succeeded in convincing Mrs. Franklin to sit down and tell them all a bit about Chloe's symphonic inclinations. It took her a few long breaths to calm herself, but once she began, she became steadily more relaxed.

"Chloe never was very social, we tried sports and clubs and things, but she would play all sorts of tricks to get out of going. We knew that she liked to sing in her bedroom, though, so my husband and I decided to get her involved with the children's choir at church. I wouldn't say we're particularly devout, but she loved it so much that we stuck with it for the last two years or so. The director said she was exceptional, and that we should encourage her, so about six months back we started sending her to a voice coach..." She petered out and glanced around the room, eager for some sort of indication that she was saying the right thing.

"Does your church have an orchestra as well?" Sherlock jumped in immediately, "particularly one with especially talented young musicians?"

"No…" she stammered, "just an organist, an older gentleman, a deacon, I think. And one of the other kids' mothers played flute sometimes."

"Was she involved in any other music programs?" He tried, and though it was subtle, John could tell he was growing increasingly tense.

"No, like I said, she wasn't very social."

"We're going to need a list, Mrs. Franklin." Sherlock decided finally.

"Pardon? A list of what?"

"People. People your daughter was in contact with in relation to her musical inclinations, people who knew that she was especially talented. The choir director, the organist, the flutist, the voice coach, both children and adults, anyone associated with her through music." He changed tack suddenly. "John, what day is it?"

He decided not to question Sherlock's thought process. "Erm, Thursday."

"The date!"

"October twenty-first."

In spite of his less than ideal state of health, he was on his feet instantaneously, wobbling only slightly. "Lestrade, I'm entrusting you with the collaboration of aforementioned list. Please include any available contact information for each person, as well as a description of their relevance. Deliver it to Baker Street by this evening. John, come on, I'll need you."

Lestrade shouldn't have been surprised after more than five years of similar treatment, but he couldn't stop himself from demanding, "Where are you going?"

Sherlock turned to him, lips tight, eyes steely. "I need to bake a cake."


	10. Confections and Family Matters

AN: For anyone interested, the Cake of Queen and Country mentioned in this chapter actually exists. It was my own 21st birthday cake back in October, which my flatmate lovingly made for me, amateur piping, sugar sprinkles and all. It was delicious.

* * *

><p>As soon as the Franklins' front door shut behind them, Sherlock took a firm hold on John's upper arm and his head dropped heavily onto his doctor's uninjured shoulder. John stood, resolute as a sentinel, and waited for him to gasp and shudder through the worst of the migraine, feeling the rush of Sherlock's warm breath even through the reinforced shoulder of his jacket. True to form, it was less than a minute before he managed to collect himself, pushing his dishevelled bangs back from his slightly clammy forehead and straightening up as though the whole episode had never happened.<p>

"We need to go back to the flat," John decided, leaving no room for argument, but careful not to imply condescension by saying '_you_ need to go back to the flat.'

"Tesco first," he retaliated, "we'll get a taxi."

"What the bloody hell for?"

"Cake mix."

"_What_? Cake, seriously? I thought you were being sarcastic. You actually _do_ need to bake a cake?" John's whole face screwed up with confusion, the reason for Sherlock's sudden culinary urge was too far out of his reach for him to even begin speculating.

Sherlock, with covert nonchalance, looped his arm around John's elbow and nudged him just had enough to make him start walking. He was careful to lean only as much as he needed to. "It's Mycroft's birthday." He explained brightly, just before a sly grin crept across his face. "And he's on a diet."

John was too appalled to even be embarrassed by the fact that he was walking arm-in-arm with his flatmate. "I have never met anyone with their priorities so out of order." He sighed. He was letting Sherlock have his way again, he knew it, but he was spread too thin to let it bother him.

* * *

><p>"You got the German chocolate icing?"<p>

"Yes, yes, I got exactly what you told me," John grumbled, dragging a crinkly plastic Tesco bag with him as he climbed back into the cab. "Including, against my better judgment…sugar sprinkles."

"If you're going to play at sabotage," Sherlock announced, "you have to fuss over details."

"Is this _really_ necessary?" John demanded as the cab headed, finally, toward Baker Street. "You're putting a case on hold, putting your own health in jeopardy, just to ruin Mycroft's diet out of spite?"

"Worth it."

"You're impossible."

"Any further outbursts, doctor?"

"Nope. That'll do for now, I suppose."

Sherlock tried very stoically to make the distance from the curb side to the second-story flat with his usual vigour, but his spinning head had him leaning on the wall for support by the time he was halfway up the stairs.

"You need painkillers," John decided, overtaking him and walking backwards to continue his scolding "painkillers and a good night's sleep."

"Isn't that how I got this way in the first place?" He teased.

John scowled. "Come on then, let's get this cake bollocks over with so we can get on with our lives." He gripped Sherlock's upper arm and guided him up the stairs, releasing him finally to drop onto a stool next to the kitchen table before scurrying off to plunder his considerable stock of pharmaceuticals.

Sherlock searched for a spot to set his elbows, but hardly an inch of the flat surface was not canvassed with beakers, dishes, graduated cylinders, papers, tools, microscopes. He propped his foot up on the seat and rested his head on his knee instead. He was so warm in his coat and so relieved to be back in his flat that his ailing brain allowed him a rare moment of silence. He was practically asleep by the time John returned, but he was startled back to consciousness by the hiss of the tap coming on. He had determinedly recomposed himself by the time John presented him with a glass of water and three different pills.

"What's this?"

"Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and caffeine." It was melatonin, but Sherlock didn't need to know that, and with the right motivation he could lie convincingly. Sherlock plucked the tablets distastefully from John's palm and swallowed them in one go, grimacing childishly as he chased them with the water. "And now I'm going to make you a ham sandwich, because otherwise you'll be whining about a stomach-ache in ten minutes."

"Clever trick, doctor," he conceded, dropping his forehead back to his knee, "getting me medicated _and_ fed in one go. Commendable."

"Yeah, well, you fell for it." John bustled about, fetching bread and mayonnaise and anything else in the sparsely stocked kitchen he could use to add calories to his rare opportunity to feed the temporarily submissive consulting detective.

Sherlock reached languidly for the shopping bag that John had dropped near his feet and retrieved the box of cake mix. Instructions: Eggs, water, vegetable oil. Luckily this was going to take no more than five minutes to blend, although he was sure that the Union Jack he was planning to pipe onto the top would turn out a little shaky. _Of course_, he could have just left it chocolate and Mycroft still would have eaten it, addiction was a family matter, but two personal jabs at once? Queen, country, and cake? Too good an opportunity to pass up.

"Preheat the oven please, John." There was an exasperated sigh and the oven clicked on. "Also, get a mixing bowl."

"We haven't got one, you've put a dog's stomach in it so you could store in the fridge, and even if you clean it out I am absolutely never putting food in it again." He came around the table and went through the same gamut of obstacles that Sherlock's elbows had faced as he looked for a spot to set the plate with the sandwich. Eventually, frustrated, he confiscated two beakers and relocated them to the counter to make room. "Eat that, or I will personally ensure that Mycroft's diet remains on track."

Sherlock grumbled incomprehensibly and waved his hand in a gesture that could have meant either "I'd like to see you try" or "you win, go away." John dug in the cabinets for a large saucepan – the bowl was a lost cause – and snatched the shopping bag from the floor and the cake mix from Sherlock's hand. "Eat the food." He repeated, pointing at the plate and giving him a glare that could have killed a lesser human being.

Sherlock took a few unenthused bites, but found each movement harder and harder. He worried for a moment that he was developing some sort of cognitive problem, that perhaps the overdose had done more permanent damage than he had realised, but he noticed the way John kept glancing at him as he mixed the cake batter.

"Ah, _very_ good," he smiled weakly, "you gave me a sleeping pill, and now that I'm eating it's metabolising more quickly." He nodded knowingly. "Don't expect to get one over on me so easily when I'm uncompromised, John, I am still considerably cleverer than you."

"Yeah, keep rubbing it in, I still won this round."

"I let you win." His voice was slurring already.

He was swiftly losing consciousness, but still aware enough to feel John – firmly but not roughly - peeling off his coat, then his suit jacket, and pushing on his back to steer him toward the sofa. He allowed himself to be manhandled into a sitting position, then lay back voluntarily, deciding that he was far too dizzy to protest with any level of dignity. He giggled slightly as he realised that John was now removing his shoes for him, but was too far gone even to reprimand his caretaker for not being properly respectful of his very expensive footwear.

"John?" He grumbled in a last bid for rational thought.

"Yes?" He was hesitant, not sure if he was in for an outpouring of gratitude or more snide criticism.

"I am entrusting you with The Cake of Queen and Country. Don't disappoint me."

John snorted. There was absolutely no chance in hell that he would be spending the remainder of this very long and trying day baking, decorating, and delivering a cake for the sole purpose of irritating his genius flatmate's admittedly rather corpulent brother. But wouldn't that have been a hell of a story?

* * *

><p>Less than two hours later, Dr. John H. Watson MD, formerly of the British Army and with both the medals and scars to show for it, found himself seated in the very posh but rather uncomfortable office of Mycroft Holmes. On his left knee was balanced a chocolate sheet cake, coated in cellophane and adorned with a clearly amateur rendition in coloured icing of the British flag. It glinted in the yellowish lamplight with white sugar sprinkles.<p>

Mycroft had been notified of Johns arrival by his lovely – very lovely, if a bit humourless – assistant, but he seemed to be taking his sweet time responding. This gave John more than long enough contemplate his life's decisions up to this point and attempt to identify the exact, momentary lapse in judgment that had led him to where he was now. He chewed the inside of his cheek for what must have been the thousandth time this afternoon and glared at the cake, as though this were somehow entirely its fault.

"Afternoon, Doctor Watson." He had been so cross with the cake that he had hardly noticed Mycroft enter the room behind him. The elder Holmes brother rounded the chair, his face buried in a file, but he quickly stopped and did an appropriately understated double-take when he saw the confectionary offering that John was holding. His dark eyes jumped from the cake to John's face and back several times before he finally turned fully about and leaned back against his desk.

"Erm, Sherlock asked me to bring you –"

"So he's relapsed." Mycroft's tone was dire, but characteristically matter-of-fact, and his jaw was set in a way that betrayed his anxiety.

John sighed. He was constantly out of his depth with either of these two. Was cake some sort of secret Holmesian cry for help, or could Mycroft just read him that well? "I...I'm not sure relapsed is the right word…" he struggled. He didn't want to have to relive the whole story. In his exhaustion he wasn't sure how he would hold up emotionally.

"Whatever semantics you choose to employ, I know my brother well enough to realise that he would never pass up an opportunity to humiliate me in person." Mycroft dropped the file onto his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "I honestly don't know how he convinced you to do his dirty work, but his absence implies that he is one of three things: dead, effectively comatose, or deeply ashamed of his current state of being. Knowing his history, and seeing that he was clearly able to communicate to you his little –" he peered repugnantly at the Union Jack cake " – tradition, I think it's reasonable to assume that he is neither dead nor comatose. That leaves one possibility." He raised an eyebrow and lowered his chin and John dropped his gaze, not sure how to carry the conversation.

"Would you like a piece of cake, Doctor Watson?"

He had never needed a piece of cake so badly in his life.


	11. Wants and Needs

AN: Have I mentioned that I love Mycroft? Mycroft is the most dapper-as-fuck human being ever to be envisioned, fictionally or otherwise. Enjoy this chapter of cake and back story, and keep an eye out for Chapter 12, because it's a gem, really it is.

* * *

><p>Though he wasn't sure precisely why Mycroft kept a small stack of paper plates and a smaller bouquet of plastic flatware in his desk drawer – perhaps anticipating the occasion? – he didn't dare to ask, nor did he complain when he was wordlessly offered a substantial portion of the dessert he had so painstakingly decorated.<p>

"I take it you've confiscated whatever it was he was shooting up this time?" Mycroft asserted, taking great care not to let any crumbs fall onto his suit as he took a bite of the cake.

John's stomach turned. He hadn't. He'd been so distracted by the…well, the entirety of last night that he had completely forgotten to demand that the stash be turned over. Now he had left Sherlock alone in the flat, with a presumably vast array of drugs hidden somewhere. He swallowed his suddenly unwanted mouthful of cake and made an effort to look Mycroft directly in the eye. "I don't imagine we'll have to worry about it again," he said evasively, "he learned a rather hard lesson."

Mycroft stopped mid-forkful and regarded John dubiously. "An overdose?"

John nodded, returning his gaze to the floor.

"Your mistake is to assume that this is the first time he has overdosed, and to likewise assume that the last time taught him anything." Mycroft completed the bite of cake, though with considerably less enthusiasm. "I had hoped it would be different with you," he stared wistfully at his brother's only companion, "I had hoped he would change for your sake, but old habits die hard, it seems."

John's heartbeat was suddenly rushing in his ears as he imagined all the horrible things that Sherlock could be getting into while he was halfway across London delivering a hate cake. He had to be the worst doctor in history. Sherlock trusted him, Mycroft trusted him, Lestrade trusted him, and here he was, leaving a cocaine addict alone in a flat with indeterminate – presumably vast - amounts of drugs. He forced himself to be calm. Sherlock was fast asleep, and if he was going to try anything, now was surely too soon, just a day after his...incident. There was no need to worry.

"I don't suppose he ever told you much about his…illicit past?" Mycroft presumed, raising his brows as he continued to attack his cake.

John shook his head. "Erm, just... bits and pieces, nothing much concrete."

"Well, now that he has so recklessly chosen to involve you in his substance abuse, it seems only fair to let you in on a bit of our…family history. It's your business now as well, should you choose to continue living with him." The subject was a hard one, he could tell by Mycroft's strained expression, but John could not deny that he was – at the very least – morbidly curious about Sherlock's life before he had entered it. He squirmed slightly in the lumpy chair and licked his lips.

Mycroft sighed. "It started with the prescriptions," He was now picking at his cake more than eating it, "by age thirteen my brother had been diagnosed with more than twenty separate mental afflictions by eight different psychiatrists, and was medicated intermittently for every last one of them. Ritalin, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, quite an array of sedatives. I don't know the particulars of the progression to illegal narcotics, but by sixteen the nosebleeds were a dead giveaway. His personality had been so altered by prescribed medications for so long that it wasn't immediately obvious that anything was wrong, but when he would just sit at dinner with blood dripping down his front and not seem to notice, we all realised that Sherlock had spiralled out of our control. Our father, being the upright, controlling man he was, tried to shame him to sobriety, but the only change in his behaviour was to start injecting the cocaine rather than insufflating it. Track marks are easier to hide."

John suddenly remembered the dark blood trickling over Sherlock's ghastly pale skin and his throat tightened. It must have been Pavlovian, a trauma reaction, a reaction to the…the only word for it was relapse, he supposed.

Mycroft tapped his foot slightly and continued. "I distanced myself from him. I was twenty-three and living on my own, focused on a career, but at Mummy's pleading I tried talking to him. He wouldn't have it. I grew resentful, took it personally, and foolishly decided that somehow I would make him see reason. I knew that he couldn't be supporting a cocaine habit on his allowance, so I kept closer tabs on him until I had reason to believe he was stealing from our parents. I dutifully informed father, who to say the least, did not take it well…"

John knew the next bit, but he found himself wondering if Mycroft did, if he knew the full truth of it. He felt his hand was shaking slightly, and he balled up a fist to steady it.

"Father turned him out on the spot," he hesitated, took another comforting bite of cake, "and he told my brother that if he was planning to make it his goal in life to asphyxiate on his own vomit, he should do it sooner rather than later and save his family the embarrassment. Mummy tried to calm him. She was one of those rare people who love unconditionally, and she loved whatever was left of Sherlock with a fervour that brought her to tears more often than not." He sighed again. "I felt guilty immediately, of course, tracked him down and found that he had moved in with his dealer. Needless to say, the drug habit didn't improve with that sort of incubator as a living environment, so less than a year later, when I had finally secured a decent job, I offered to let him move in with me. I hoped it would let him start over, and hoped it would alleviate my guilt to some small extent, but on that very first night in my flat, he locked himself in his bedroom and suffered his first overdose."

John's whole body was shaking slightly now.

"He was legally dead for eight minutes before they could resuscitate him. As I'm sure you know, Doctor, that is an extraordinarily long time. They were amazed when his heart started again, and it was only then that I could bring myself to call our mother. I pulled some strings to get him out of court-appointed rehab, my second foolish mistake." He was quiet for a long moment. "Once he was finally conscious and saw Mummy sobbing over him, I was sure that he had seen the error of his ways. I was sure that what he wouldn't do for my sake he would do for hers, because in his lucid moments he loved her as dearly as she loved him… That love held out for perhaps two months, and I dared to hope that finally the drama of his short life was over, and that now he was bound to use his incredible mind for something meaningful. Wrong again." He smiled dryly. "It crept back up on him. First nicotine, then morphine, then within six months he was back to cocaine, as far gone as ever. He hardly left his bedroom, hardly ate. Even on good days he was catatonic. The only time he would pretend to be coherent is when Mummy came to visit, which she did often, always desperate to see improvement, never getting it. She even brought him a violin, but he showed only a furtive, manic-depressive sort of interest in it."

"He still has that violin, doesn't he?" John recalled, his voice slightly shaky from his long silence. "He plays it all bloody night sometimes."

"The very same." Mycroft agreed, glancing wistfully at the cake as though he wanted another piece, but restraining himself. "It's the closest he can come to apologising to her now, I should think."

John gave a slight start. He had never thought much about it, but he noticed that the brothers always referred to their mother in the past tense. Why? He knew she was still alive...at least, he thought so. He wondered now about their father, but decided that it wasn't the time to ask.

"Ironically, it was a complete stranger who finally saved my brother, and a dead one at that," He continued, "a young athlete by the name of Carl Powers. News of the boy's drowning came on the television late in the afternoon, it was summer, Sherlock was eighteen. He was spread over my armchair, high as a kite, as per usual, when his head snapped up and he said - " Mycroft paused to smile knowingly " - 'what about the shoes?' I asked what about them. He spouted off something that sounded like nonsense at the time, about his clothes in the locker room and something about jealousy. I hardly listened. Yet, for whatever reason, that brought his cocaine binge to screeching halt. He demanded that I bring him newspapers, which I did, for no reason other than my own curiosity, and he started insisting that the boy had been murdered. To my amazement, he stayed clean for the next week, doing research, making phone calls to the police, but no-one gave him the slightest consideration. He scoured the papers every day, started hacking the databases at Scotland Yard, and in the meantime he solved dozens of unrelated crimes that he stumbled upon, but his solutions were never accepted by law enforcement. Desperate to be taken seriously, he kept sober more often than not, forced himself to start school again, studied chemistry, and I'm sure you can guess the rest."

"So he had been clean for nearly twenty years before last night?" John marvelled, his stomach twisting with something between guilt and anxiety.

Mycroft somehow managed to laugh condescendingly. "Naiveté, Doctor, you trust him too much. He gets bored, you know, if he goes long enough without a case. Mercifully he usually only plays about with small doses. Clearly not this time."

"But he's got a case on," John explained with surprise, "a tricky one, in fact, he doesn't seem… bored."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows. "Well then, there is another explanation, isn't there?" The look he gave John was not the least bit accusatory, but even so, he felt the weight of blame fall on him with painful force. He was suddenly overcome with an interminable need to be back at Baker Street. He couldn't bring himself to believe that Sherlock was getting high back at the flat, but how well did he really know him? Compared to Mycroft? He had lived with Sherlock for less than a year and had never even seen him under the influence; his brother had known him his whole life, the good and the bad.

"I need to get home," he muttered pensively, having nearly forgotten that Mycroft was in the room.

"You're worried about him. How touching." He was being neither entirely acerbic nor entirely sarcastic.

"I slipped him a melatonin before I left," John added defensively, "left him sleeping on the sofa. He needed it, but I want to get back to him before it gets too late."

Mycroft's remarkable intelligence – certainly no less incisive than Sherlock's - was hardly wasted. He saw through every passing, anxious thought that flickered behind John's eyes, and John quickly realised his transparency. He could only clear his throat and impale his remaining cake on his fork.

"I'm sure you'll give Sherlock my regards," he affirmed, John gave a reflexively polite half-smile. "And John," he added, his tone dramatically softened, "take care of him. In some way, his own incomprehensible way, he needs you."


	12. Thick Skulls and Declarations

AN: Three words: "married or whatever." By the way, in case you all haven't heard, the Series 2 release date was announced this morning. New Years Day, how exciting.

In the meantime, continue to gorge yourselves on fanfiction and enjoy Chapter 12, in which the boys are married or whatever.

* * *

><p>Each step up the stairs to the flat seemed to add another layer to his apprehension. He forced himself to walk, not run. Nothing bad was happening. Nothing bad could be happening. Sherlock was fine, sleeping on the sofa. He was fine. He breathed deeply to calm the pounding of his heart and reprimanded himself again. One step at a time. His legs trembled.<p>

When he finally reached the landing he could no longer restrain his pent-up fear. He threw his weight against the door as he turned the knob, all but stumbling as he crossed the threshold, and was bathed in warm lamplight.

"Please tell me he ate it?" Sherlock queried with devious glee, glancing up from the sheet of paper he had been so intently focused on. He looked better. Not fully recovered, but better. Three hours of sleep had done him good. He had relieved himself of his socks and his belt in John's absence, unbuttoned his cuffs, and had allowed one more undone shirt button than usual.

John was panting slightly, his relief quickly replacing itself with determination. "Where is it then?" He demanded, glancing around the room as though Sherlock would be stupid enough to leave narcotics out in plain sight.

"You were supposed to deliver it to Mycroft, if you've misplaced it somewhere along the way, that's your problem."

"The drugs, Sherlock, not the cake!"

He raised an eyebrow. "Ah… I knew you wouldn't be distracted forever, but I didn't expect you to be so abrupt about it." He dropped the sheet of paper and leaned back into the sofa. "What makes you so sure I have any more?"

"Oh come on, I may not be Sherlock Holmes, but I'm not a bloody idiot."

Sherlock chuckled. "Perhaps you're not," he admitted, "in that case, what makes you think I'll give you everything? We've already established that my capacity for deceit far outstrips your creativity."

John's head tipped back in exasperation. "Can we please not make this a game?" He pleaded, his voice a snarl. "Can you just let this be easy for me, this one thing? Can you just let me _care_ about your well-being?"

"You can't stop yourself from caring about my well-being, you're a doctor. It's what you do." Sherlock decided crassly.

"You have no _fucking idea_ how much I care about you!" All the fear, the pain, the frustration, the anger of the last twenty-four hours burst unexpectedly from his chest in a torrent that cracked his voice and sent an uncontrollable shudder through his body. He swallowed what felt treacherously like a sob and counted back from ten, waiting for his emotions to subside. It was less effective than he had hoped.

Sherlock's reply was quiet, hesitant, and there was an element of stillness to it that was far-removed from his usual character. "Don't I?"

"I just…" he took another breath, well aware that he was doing more breathing than talking and that even so, he was not growing calmer. He crossed the room stiffly and dropped into his chair – Sherlock's chair, technically, but he had commandeered it since he had moved in. "We need to talk."

"We are talking."

"Okay, never mind, scratch that," he snapped, "I need to talk and you need to listen."

Sherlock's expression hardened slightly and he crossed his arms over his chest expectantly. There was a long, tense silence as John tried to sort out all the abstractions writhing in his chest.

"You're right," he said finally, "you're right, I can't help but care. I have some sort of…masochistic compulsion to feel _needed_," His hands flexed, flattening then curling into a fist. The left was shaking again. "I think that's how I was always so sure that I wanted to be a doctor. I mean, I really do _care_ about people, I want to help people, but there's more to it than that. I'm desperate to...have a purpose, I guess. I want to be important to someone." He glanced up at Sherlock to get a reading on how his speech was going so far and met those piercing, calculating eyes. The detective made neither sound nor movement to the affirmative, but his gaze compelled John to continue.

He looked down, told himself not to lick his lips because he knew it made him look like an idiot, because he knew Sherlock was scrutinizing him like a microscope slide, because he had never really admitted this to anyone, least of all himself, and the right words were so hard to come by.

"When I was sent home to London," he continued, "I wouldn't go to Harry, true enough, but I wouldn't go to any of my old friends either. They offered, but to any of them I would just have been a freeloader, a self-righteous, depressed, ex-army doctor with a fake limp and some serious emotional problems. They didn't need me, they were just being nice. And, well, then I met you. At first, I thought it would just be a matter of putting up half the rent, and that was enough for me, at the time, but then I found out –"

He glanced up again, his anxiety lessening slightly, giving way to something he might have called frustrated affection "and don't take this the wrong way, because you know exactly what I mean – I found out what a brilliant, insufferable _child_ you are." Sherlock's jaw tightened. He went on anyway. "I mean, Sherlock, you can tell where I'm going every morning by the length of my stride, but you can't do your own damn laundry. You can't tie your own tie, for Christ's sake!"

"I'll have you know that I can immediately distinguish a Pratt from a Windsor, even on grainy CCTV footage, yet the knowledge of how to actually accomplish either of those knots has never once proven useful."

"Yes fine, but not remotely the point." John snatched the conversation back from the jaws of digression, and Sherlock grudgingly shut up. "My point, Sherlock, is that I always thought that the reason I liked it here was because you needed me, in whatever small ways. To make a point to Lestrade, to do the shopping, to tie your damn ties." Sherlock shot him a warning look but allowed him to continue. "And I never thought much else about the arrangement, because it's made me happy, generally speaking, and I'm not the sort to question that. But then…last night…happened." He swallowed. "And it made me realise – Sherlock? Wait, what are you doing?"

He had sprung abruptly from the sofa and crossed the room with even more than his usual brusque spontaneity, headed for his bedroom. John didn't even need to see his face to know that something had upset him.

"Sherlock!" he shouted desperately, rushing after him, but he was a few seconds too late, the door had slammed long before he could reach it. He stood, panting slightly and shaking irrepressibly, partly because the declaration he had yet to make was burning a hole in his throat like acid, and partly because he had not forgotten the last time this door had slammed. "Stop it!" He cried, and he would have been loud even if he hadn't had to make himself heard through the door. "Come back and sit down and hear me out, God damn it!" He raised his fist to pound on the door, but to his surprise, it swung open. Sherlock hadn't yet jury-rigged it to lock since John had broken the latch.

The genius in question stood with his back turned, head lowered slightly, and leaning heavily with his hand on the desk chair. "For the record," he snarled dryly, "I hadn't planned on shooting up this evening, so no need to have an episode." He didn't turn around.

"Sherlock, please, just _listen_ –"

"You can move out if you want." His voice trembled, and John was shocked into silence. "I won't stalk you, I won't go back to the drugs to guilt you into coming back. There's a time in my life when I would have, but…" he drew a shuddering breath. "And I won't try suicide or anything like that. I'm not an idiot."

John was so stunned that he very nearly burst out laughing. It wasn't funny, of course, but he felt so strangely giddy.

"You _are_ an idiot," he scoffed, "utterly. You're the smartest idiot I've ever met, but god are you thick."

Sherlock turned to regard his flatmate cautiously. He didn't even bother to hide his look of pained confusion, one that was not at all becoming on him.

"Sherlock," he took a single, hesitant step closer. "I'm going to tell you what I have to say, and don't try to _deduce_ any of it pre-emptively because maybe, just maybe, I'm having a thought that you _don't_ yet fully understand. And regardless, you will bloody well allow me my right to say it to you."

Sherlock stood frozen in anticipation. John inhaled deeply.

"Last night, I should have taken you to the hospital, really should have, but I didn't. Because you asked me to stay with you." He paused, willing his shoulders to relax. "You would think…that this was just a result of that compulsion, that _addiction_ to usefulness that I have, but I realise now that it wasn't. You weren't just a patient for me to wield my expertise on; you've never been just my incompetent flatmate. The reason, the _real_ reason I didn't call an ambulance is because I knew that they would have carted you off for observation and I would have had to pace it out in some hideous sea foam-blue waiting room until 9 a.m. when they allow visitors." He raised his head slightly and waited for Sherlock's anxiously darting eyes to fix on his own. "And I couldn't bear that. I couldn't begin to fathom the notion of being parted from you when I felt you could die at any moment. I was absolutely as useless curled in your bed with you as I would have been in a damn hospital, but that didn't matter. I still wanted to be there. For better or worse, we've become this…symbiotic...unit. We're inseparable, you and I."

Sherlock could no longer maintain eye contact. He scanned the floor wordlessly, his lips parted, betraying little of what he was thinking.

"What I'm trying to say," he resolved finally, running his fingers through his hair, "is that in every _imaginable_ way, I need you. And though you'd never admit it, you need me just as much. We're stuck with each other, so don't" his voice cracked "don't…bloody kill yourself with drugs…please, because…ugh, I'm shutting up... I'll just shut up now." He felt his voice faltering, felt the tightness in his chest, and realised his emotional stamina had run out. He desperately wanted Sherlock to answer him. Anything, he didn't care what he said; he just wanted something to distract him from the tears stinging the corners of his eyes. He lowered his head in the vain hope that he could camouflage his embarrassing spate of vulnerability, but he knew it was pointless.

He heard a soft footstep, then another, and then felt the gentle pressure of Sherlock's slender hand on his left shoulder, the left, the one punctuated by scars. He gave up trying to hide his crying, and the two of them just stood there for a moment, John sobbing gently and Sherlock, for perhaps the first time in his life, glad to be there for it. He gripped a little tighter and waited silently for his friend – his only friend – to expend the remainder of his personal burden, one that Sherlock knew he was responsible for.

"John?"

"Hmm?"

"Wait here." His hand slipped from John's shoulder and he rushed back to the sitting room. John took the opportunity to wipe the tears stoically from his face, but Sherlock returned almost immediately carrying – of all things – the skull. John stared, perplexed, for a moment as Sherlock turned it over and prodded his first and middle fingers into the foramen magnum, where the spine had once connected.

_No. There is no way he keeps his drugs in that skull._

He produced a scrap of black felt, in which was wrapped a small pill bottle. "Oral morphine." He explained, offering it to John, who took it silently. He likewise produced two vials of liquid, a small bag of white powder, and another with four purple pills.

"Is that ecstasy?" It was the only coherent question he could form.

"Not my best experiment," he muttered dismissively, then began scurrying around the room, digging out more vials and bags from false bottoms in drawers, a torch with a secret compartment, and the inside of a jacket lapel. By the time he was finished, John had to cup both hands to hold the litany of unlabeled containers that Sherlock had given him.

"The skull?" He asked finally, "really?"

He shrugged. "Seemed appropriately melodramatic."

"No kidding. That's...that's very Sherlock." He sniffed slightly and let a few long seconds slip by. "Here, give us your hands." Sherlock looked confused, but held out his palms, and John, without the slightest hesitation, returned the awkward bundle.

"So…you don't –"

"You trust me, right?" John interjected.

A smile pulled weakly at Sherlock's face, and there was no shade of cynicism to it. "With my life, as I think I've aptly demonstrated."

"Well, I'm trusting you," John decided, resting his hands on his hips "as wholeheartedly as you trust me."

Sherlock shifted his bare feet, clearly unsure of what to do with his amalgamation of drugs. "John, would you –" there was an endearing tremor in his voice, "would you like to have tea on the sofa and watch crap telly with me?"

John smiled broadly; understanding that this was the closest Sherlock would ever come to declaring undying love, and nodded.


	13. Rest and Reconnaissance

AN: Sorry this update is a bit behind, I've been having a lovely visit with the family, but they're all asleep now, and thanks to my chronic insomnia, I'm still more than awake enough to post another chapter for you lucky bastards! How spoiled you are!

The case is moving forward, so prepare for a bit of upping of the ante, and a bit more danger from unexpected places. (Also, a bit of cuddling. Sort of.)

* * *

><p>Sherlock was well aware of the fact that John was leaning closer and closer to him with every passing moment, but he supposed that he had asked for it by wedging himself in the corner of the sofa. In doing so he had left his flatmate nowhere to lean but straight back, a position not at all in agreement with the good doctor's level of exhaustion. Both had long ago lost interest in what was on the television, first a talk show, and now some vapid crime drama with a predictably young, attractive female lead. For Sherlock, the slow, incessant slump of John's head drawing ever nearer to his shoulder was far more interesting, comparatively.<p>

He had never been the sort to allow other people to touch him, but John hardly counted as "other" anymore, did he? John wasn't threatening or demanding or even particularly interested in touching him, it was just consequence, and Sherlock found it strangely and unexpectedly tolerable. More than tolerable...soothing, cathartic, pleasant. He felt that he was beginning to form a better visceral sort of grasp of people with tactile fixations, like playing with their hair or twisting rings on their fingers. He blinked slowly. He had a sudden urge to run his fingers through John's hair, just to determine the texture. Would that be inappropriate? He refrained, turning his eyes back to the telly.

His friend's head, finally, made contact with his chest and he shifted gently until they were both comfortable. Somewhere in that slightest of shuffling, and quite against his volition, his left hand crept from its resting place on his stomach to lie gently on John's shoulder. Once there, his inquisitive fingers slid until he could feel the raised gunshot scar through the thin cotton of his undershirt. On impulse, he squeezed gently, running the pads of his fingers in a circle, working the obvious stiffness out of the irreparably damaged muscle until John shifted slightly against him.

"What are you doing?" he murmured sleepily.

Sherlock stopped. Uncalled-for, perhaps. Inappropriate.

"It's...fine, you can keep at it, I was just...wondering." His eyes never opened beyond a bleary slit and soon he was still again. Hesitantly, Sherlock resumed massaging his wounded shoulder, earning a sigh of gratitude.

He couldn't begin to deny that he was tired, and watching John drift off against him made it painfully obvious. He leaned back into the cushion and let his eyes slide closed. His hand relaxed but remained comfortably alighted on his friend's shoulder, and as he mused over the thought of spending a second night in very close contact with another human being – something he had never willingly done before – he was very glad for the existence of John Watson. Glad of his strong heartbeat and his steady breathing and even of the Afghan bullet in his flesh that had brought him back to London, to 221B Baker Street and – inexplicably – to the comfortable and surprisingly spacious Italian leather sofa he now shared.

* * *

><p>John was snapped awake by the distinctive sound of Sherlock's very expensive shoes tapping frenetically across the hardwood. He spent a few dazed seconds trying to recall why he wasn't in his bed, but it didn't take long for the previous night to trickle back into his relevant memory, leaving him wondering, ultimately, how Sherlock was planning to dispose of what was undoubtedly several thousand pounds' worth of drugs, all of which they had left strewn across his bed last night. He stretched out his back and rolled over, allowing himself a few minutes to reorient, but was rudely interrupted by a very enthusiastic detective.<p>

"Oh good, you're awake," Sherlock swept past him in a flurry, re-stacking and reorganizing files he had left out on the table. "Make yourself presentable, we have leads to pursue. I've wasted enough time on personal nonsense, and this case is far overdue for an explanation."

He wasn't sure which he preferred: helpless, clingy, needy Sherlock or bossy, rude, needy Sherlock. Either way, he sat up slowly and retreated up the stairs to his bedroom for a moment to change.

"What's on then?" He inquired, rather apathetically dropping back to the sofa as Sherlock hastily scribbled notes on what looked to be a directory list.

"I've been over the list of contacts that Lestrade brought last night," he explained, "I've narrowed it down to four."

"Wait, when was Lestrade here?" He demanded, running over his mental timeline again, sure that he had missed something.

"When you were halfway across London delivering a cake to my brother, why do you think I was awake when you came home? Mrs. Hudson's front door may never recover from the abuse he had to subject it to in order to wake me."

"Oh." John raised his eyebrows, "well in that case, _pardon me_..."

"We have to see the choir director first," he decided, folding the leaf of paper and handing it to John as he picked up his coat and scarf. He turned toward the door and was nearly to the stairs before it occurred to him that John had not yet pried himself off the sofa. He turned back. "What are you waiting for? It's nearly ten in the morning and hardly an ounce of progress today; we need to make up for lost time."

John looked him over briefly: still pale, still dark-eyed, still ethereally childlike, but with as much determination as ever. Recovered enough, at least, that there was no way in hell John could stop him now. Something compelled him to smile and he got to his feet, fetching his jacket. "Where to then?"

He found both a thrill and a reassurance in the mere act of falling into step behind Sherlock as he hurried down the stairs. It was business as usual, insanity in the typical manner, and never mind the last forty-eight hours.

"Which four?" John asked as they ducked into a cab.

"Sorry?"

"You said you'd narrowed the list down to four people, who are they?"

"Oh, yes, the choir director, the flutist, the voice coach, and the school principal."

"Why them?"

"Because all of them knew Chloe Franklin and all of them could potentially have known the other two, in the context of their musical talents specifically. Choir director volunteered at several after-school programs, flutist was the parent of one of the choir children; her daughter presumably had friends, the voice coach taught piano and violin as well, and the school principal was an advocate of arts programs, she knew the Franklins personally, attended fundraisers practically every weekend."

"Have you figured out a motive yet?" John prompted, tapping his knuckles against the window.

Sherlock's mouth tightened and hr ran his fingers over his lips. "If I had figured out a motive, this would be solved by now," he half-snarled. "Envy, perhaps, but..." he trailed off, wrestling with his frustration. "We'll know soon enough, one of these four will tell us, whether they know it or not."

John nodded resolutely, not missing the uncommon and inclusive "us."

Sherlock needed only two minutes and twenty-three seconds to eliminate the choir director as a suspect. She was in her sixties, slightly arthritic, would have had a difficult time carting around a body, even a small one. Furthermore, she didn't own a car, and she certainly couldn't have taken a taxi to dump dead children in alleys. John asked her some arbitrary questions – how she knew the victim, if she had heard details of the case in the news, if she had known the other two - generally did his best impression of Lestrade to keep her occupied while Sherlock poked around the house.

"Nothing of interest, John," he announced finally, brushing past the two of them in the kitchen and out the front door, "come on, lots to do."

John stammered a hurried apology and rushed after Sherlock, leaving the poor woman looking baffled and more than a little upset.

"You have got to learn not to do that," he shouted, rushing to catch up.

"Do what?" Sherlock wondered, genuinely oblivious.

"You can't just –" it was a lost cause, and hardly the time for it. "Never mind...flutist next?"

"Nope, she's the other side of London. The voice coach is just a twenty minute walk, we'll handle that first." His stride had John bouncing every third step to keep up, and it was so typical a dynamic between them that he noticed rather abruptly a few minutes later when he had to cut short a step to stop himself from stepping on the backs of Sherlock's shoes. He was slowing, and it wasn't for lack of resolve.

"You sure you don't want a taxi?" He suggested, making an effort to keep the air of concern out of his voice, but finding it more difficult than he had imagined.

"A fifty-eight second cab ride?" He scoffed, "not worth the time it would take to hail one. Use that brain occasionally; I've determined by now that you _do_ have one."

He supposed that was very nearly a complement. "You don't need to do this, you know," he scolded.

"Casework? That would depend on your definition of 'need'."

"No, you know what I mean. You insist on acting all suave and put together, even though you feel like hell. And I know you still feel like hell, don't deny it. I'm not Sergeant Donovan, you know, I'm not sitting here judging you for being human."

Sherlock slowed, intentionally this time, and regarded him sternly. "And will whining and complaining and tarrying about solve this case any faster? Because if so, I'd gladly make a scene."

John forced out an exasperated sigh. "I'm just saying, once you've suffered a drug-induced seizure in front of someone, that pompous air of invincibility becomes rather moot in the eyes of that _particular_ person."

Sherlock declined to respond and deliberately picked up his pace until John was scuttling along once again.

"Mariana Van Orden," He deigned to announce as they closed in on her house, which was unusually tall and narrow, even by London standards, "American, but she's lived in England for twenty years. She has a WordPress blog but it hasn't been updated in five and a half months, which says to me some kind of personal trouble. I didn't have time to look into it this morning, but I trust I can extract more in person regardless."

John just nodded, knowing by now that he was mostly talking to himself. Faster than Sherlock – for a change – to make it up the four steps to the stoop, John pressed the abrasive-sounding door buzzer and the two men waited, Sherlock's pocketed fingers resting on another of the many badges he had stolen from Lestrade, just in case. John was about to press the buzzer again when there was a clink from the mail box. They tipped their heads down in unison to see several tiny fingers poking out impishly, as though the door had grown feelers.

"Hello," chirped the suddenly animate door. It was a little girl, John thought, about six. Though it was hard to tell by a single word and a few fingertips. "Who are you?"

"Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson, we need to speak with your mother," Sherlock stated bluntly, not bothering to hide the slight roll of his eyes and the stroppy huff of an exhale. It only stood to reason, John figured, that Sherlock would be the sort to dislike children.

"Mummy's out shopping, and Adrienne and me aren't to open the door to strangers, so you'll have to come back." She recited, wiggly fingers working.

John could see the frustration in Sherlock's eyes as he fought the urge to reply "Adrienne and _I,_" but he mercifully restrained himself, and before John could inquire when her mother would return, Sherlock asked instead. "Do you know any Vivaldi, Miss Van Orden?"

The fingers withdrew suddenly from the mail box and the girl's retort was now pouty and irritable. "I already practiced today, I'm tireddddd..." Her whining was interrupted by a clamber from inside the house, followed by a shout of "Lizzie!" and a squeal of protest from the little girl. John glanced at Sherlock bemusedly, his eyebrows knitted together. Sherlock did not acknowledge him. The door clattered as the mechanism of a chain lock slid loudly into place, and then opened with a truly hateful snap.

In the median between door and frame stood a boy of perhaps ten or eleven. In one hand he savagely gripped his struggling little sister's arm, on the other, the one against the door, his finger hovered over the send button on a mobile phone. His dark eyes glowered at them from beneath a heavy, black forelock, and the smattering of freckles across his nose did nothing to abate the air of pure venom emanating from him.

"Leave now or I'll call the police," he threatened flatly, coldly, "there are bad people around, doing bad stuff to kids. Mummy says can't be too careful."

John kept his eyes directly on the boy, mesmerised by the smoothness of his voice and the simmering rage in his eyes, but Sherlock seemed to be looking past him, tilting his head to see as far as possible into the sliver of hallway visible over the boy's shoulder. "Quite right your mother is," he answered finally, his tone utterly apathetic. "Come on then, John," he muttered, without looking at him, and turned away from the door, trotting back down the stairs. John glanced one last time at the boy before hurrying – nothing new there – after the detective.

As soon as he heard the door slam behind them, cutting off a pained squeal from the girl, John turned to his companion. "Did you see the –"

"Yes, fiddler's neck, same on the girl, and press of the strings obvious from her nails and fingertips. Not enough on it's own though, though Van Orden is a music teacher, making that only trivially important in terms of leads," He snapped, but it was not an arrogant or a condescending snap. It was an excited snap. "What I ascertained, however, is much more telling. Dust off your trainers, John, we have a B&E to perform."


	14. Genes and Geniuses

AN: So, is this chapter secretly a commentary on how I feel about Facebook? Surprisingly, no, I've got to be the worst culprit in the universe, I post everything on Facebook. The trick is to never, ever do anything you're ashamed of.

That philosophy is working for me so far.

The case is heating up. You will get only one more domestic moment before we go hurdling into the very depths of intrigue, so brace yourselves.

* * *

><p>There was to be none of the promised breaking and entering that day, but there was to be a great invasion of privacy. Facebook wasn't so much John's stride, but Sherlock considered social networking his fourth most useful crime-solving tool (and if you had asked him, he would have said that yes, The Homeless Network was a social network, albeit an unconventional one). The first was his brain (obviously) the second was his body (transport) the third was the lab at St. Bart's. As for the fourth, Sherlock had eight separate and unaffiliated personae on Facebook (and dozens of others on other sites), each of which had at least thirty friends. John never quite got over his amazement at the fact that dozens of people who had never met "Kelsie Bauer" or "Timothy Reston" would willingly add a stranger to their friends list, but Sherlock just smiled and said that it was human nature to desire popularity, to assume that everyone knew them. John couldn't help but wonder silently if he was referring to his "friends" or to himself. His most extensive alias had over five hundred of them, none of whom had ever met a very attractive fictional person named Valentine Curran.<p>

Mariana Van Orden had a Facebook account, one that Sherlock considered critical to the case, but he decided not to waste time with the formalities, as he knew by now that her account had almost certainly been abandoned. He found her email on her WordPress site and was somehow able to determine that she had certainly used the same email for her Facebook account. The password was a bit more of a challenge. Routinely guessing the password of your closest friend and cohabitant was hardly the same thing as unravelling that of a complete stranger. He had to resort to software other than his own brain, something that was always a blow to his pride, but he still had access to Ms. Van Orden's profile in a matter of minutes.

"John, look at this," he piped suddenly, drawing John's attention away from his Twitter search to the same – if less fruitful – ends. He crossed the room to peer over Sherlock's shoulder, scanning the woman's profile page. "What's relevant here?" He leaned back in his chair, clearly _knowing_ what was relevant but wanting John to work it out himself.

John screwed up his mouth a bit and leaned over to finger the scroll pad. His arm bumped Sherlock's ear, earning him a scalding look, but he ignored it.

"She's…a bit of a feminist, looks like," he ventured, noticing a number of supported causes. Sherlock said nothing. "And, well, obsessed with music, but that's a given. Erm…married…to Erin Ulmer, so she's playing for the ladies I suppose." The barest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of Sherlock's lips. "And…" he clicked on her photos and started scrolling through. "Some pictures of the kids, their kids, I guess, adopted. Er…last status update was more than two months ago, so I guess the account's been abandoned. Same as her website, like you said, but I guess she stuck with Facebook a bit longer."

Sherlock didn't immediately respond, but his nose did crinkle slightly. "Click through to Erin Ulmer's page," the detective advised, and John complied.

"Still active," he remarked, "last update was…last night, a photo from her mobile." He enlarged it. The slightly blurred, poorly lit photograph framed two women, both dressed as though they were clubbing. One was apparently passed out, the other giving her an exaggerated kiss on the cheek as she held up a pinkish mixed drink in a toast to the photographer.

"The spouse has a bit of a wild streak?" He wondered aloud.

"Go back a few months."

_Clickclickclick…_ "Family photos, mostly, Ulmer and Van Orden at the park with the little girl, a few of them out to dinner and such. Little girl playing with dolls, at a violin recital…"

"So where's the boy?" Sherlock asked pointedly, glancing over his shoulder at John.

He chewed his lip for a moment, then shrugged.

"You're getting there, go on."

"No, I'm not, Sherlock, just lay it out and stop mocking my stupidity."

Sherlock sighed, looking rather disappointed, but turned his attention back to the computer. "Ulmer and Van Orden are in the middle of a very sloppy, very emotional separation. Ulmer is the instigator, obviously, she gives no information on her relationship status, while Van Orden's still says married. Ulmer was the breadwinner, going by her clothes, professional sort, lots of name brands, as well as by the size and location of their house. You don't make that sort of money teaching music to kids. Maybe a lawyer, upper management somewhere, doesn't matter. Point is, Ulmer left Van Orden, and while she's off revelling in her newfound freedom, her starving artist of a spouse is beset by anxiety. Her social life has been abandoned, and she's taken to pacing as she desperately tries to sort out her options."

"Wait, how –"

"The rug, the one in front of the fireplace," Sherlock interjected. "You could see a sliver of the sitting room from the door, and there was a path worn into the rug that wasn't along a thoroughfare. That sort of repetitive wear on a low-traffic area can only mean pacing. However, her failing relationship isn't the only source of her anxiety. There's the boy, Adrienne."

"Problem child?" John inferred.

"More than that, I should think," Sherlock mused, pressing his fingertips together. "This is what I needed to be sure of; this is why I went to Facebook. There are dozens of pictures of the girl on both women's profiles, but they're all fairly recent. The oldest is three years ago, likely when Ulmer first created the account, but out of more than two hundred pictures between the two of them, Adrienne is in exactly three. Yet in the house it's the other way around. In the hallway there were eighteen framed pictures, some of the two women together, but all others of the boy, only the boy. Not a single photo is recent enough to feature the girl. Also telling, nearly every photo of Adrienne, from the time he was old enough to grasp an object, shows him with a violin."

"So…he's exceptionally good, just like the dead girls. Something of a prodigy?"

"Perhaps, though it seems to me that it's more nurture than nature." He nodded toward the computer again. "Did you see where she was trained?"

John had to click back a few pages, and Sherlock tilted his head to the side to avoid the tickle of John's jumper on his temple. "Juilliard? That's an American school, a music school. New York, right?"

Sherlock nodded. "Pretentious, I would say, but _very_ exclusive. It's the sort of school that turns out world-class musicians. Yet now, Mariana Van Orden is not playing in the London Symphony Orchestra, not playing anywhere, in fact. She's teaching music to primary school kids out of her sitting room. And like you said, she's nothing if not obsessed; I hardly think such humble means would be enough for someone so ambitious."

John straightened up slowly, planting his fists on the back of Sherlock's chair. "So she's living vicariously through her adopted children," he muttered, "grooming the boy for greatness first, then…he turned out to be mediocre, I guess, so she started again with the girl."

"You're not half bad at horseshoes, are you, John?"

"…_What_?"

"You're close, very close, but the children aren't adopted, nor is the boy anything less than genius."

"Then how…" it hit him. "They had a donor."

"Two, in fact. Both women have brown hair, did you notice? But Adrienne's is black, the girl's is blonde, and a bit curly, and both children bear some resemblance to Van Orden, but none whatsoever to Ulmer, I've examined all their photographs carefully, measured facial structures. Vastly different hair colour would suggest adoption, but Van Orden was being careful with her genetics. She wanted, specifically, exceptional musicians. She – valuing herself very highly – gave birth to both of them, and was very selective about her donor's profile. Lo and behold, she _did_ produce a genius. The mark on Adrienne's neck was one of the worst I've seen. He plays like a fiend, always has, so she got what she wanted. Yet the marked difference in appearance suggests she used a different donor for Lizzie. Why switch? Why argue with success?"

John shrugged, eager for Sherlock to continue, caught up entirely in the web of intrigue he was spinning.

"There is something wrong with Adrienne Van Orden," He announced with an air of finality. He brought up a photo of Erin Ulmer. "Split lip," he indicated, pointing it out on the screen, "and bruises on her arm." He selected another, of the little girl this time. "Her cheek is swollen, and in this one there are cuts on her hands." He had gathered a litany of evidence, going through every photo to find all the signs of abuse on the other three family members. He stopped at the fifth, certain that John was getting the idea. "No three people are consistently and simultaneously that clumsy."

"The boy's...violent," John confirmed, slightly breathless.

"Probably psychologically unstable," Sherlock confirmed, leaning back in his chair. "Hard to say what ailment exactly, but the parents are all too aware, _that's_ why they wanted a different father for the girl. _That's_ why Ulmer is trying to escape. _That's_ why there are no photos of him recently, they're blocking him out. They've given up trying to control him, now they're pretending he doesn't exist. Ulmer fled, but Van Orden is stuck with him now."

"There were tears in that girl's eyes when he grabbed her arm," John recalled, attaching significance to it suddenly. "And he didn't look the slightest bit afraid of us when he opened the door. It was like he was egging us on."

"Exactly." Sherlock's eyes were wide with revelation, his voice tense with the thrill of the chase. "Somehow, it's because of him that those girls were killed. Van Orden did it, physically, but he compelled her. Both had something to gain in murdering them, the girls were competition, they were standing in the way of something, some path to greatness, and Van Orden was smart enough to execute the murders and then cover them up. That's why we need to search the house, John. The DNA was consistent among the three girls, meaning Van Orden is pulling from a cache. If we can find it, better yet, if we can prove that it matches either of those two children, we have a case."

"I'll phone Lestrade," he offered immediately, turning back toward the sofa, but Sherlock interrupted him mid-stride.

"Don't bother; he's far too good an officer to order a raid on such flimsy conjecture. It's one thing for _me_ to know that my assumptions are correct, but quite another to explain it to ordinary people, on legal forms. We'll handle this ourselves."

John wanted to protest, really he did, but that tingle of adrenaline somewhere between his groin and his navel…the little kick in his gut that snarled _could be dangerous_ won out over reason. Always did. Always would. "How're we to know when they're out of the house?" He asked instead.

"People are stupid, John. They reveal every moment of their lives on the internet, every tiny, intimate detail." He said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. A few clicks, some scrolling, and he was on the page of a friend of a friend of Erin Ulmer, where she had left a message:

_I can't do it on Saturday. Mari wants me to take the kids and I couldn't come up with a decent excuse in time. She's dropping them of at like 6 in the frigging morning._

"Tomorrow is Saturday," John pointed out.

"Yes, thank you, I had not been informed." He grumbled sarcastically.

"We're breaking into Mariana Van Orden's house tomorrow morning."

"Does repeating it aloud help you deal with it psychologically somehow?" Sherlock scoffed, throwing out his hands and narrowing his eyes critically.

John pursed his lips. Riding out the rest of the waiting game that was today with his over-enthused consulting detective flatmate was going to drag for chaotic eons, and he was going to have to clean it up afterward. But god, he couldn't help the quivering of excitement that was rising steadily in his chest.


	15. Vows and Sensations

AN: So I checked a moment ago, and guess what? 10,000 hits on this story. I'm chuffed, really I am. You all are awesome.

And if you've noticed that updates have been a bit slow the last week or so, don't fret, I haven't abandoned you, I just finished up my exams this week and my work schedule has been similarly unforgiving, but Christmas break is here, and you shall have more!

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><p>It had been four bloody hours, and John had had it.<p>

Sherlock's brain was going at near light speed, and as a matter of consequence, so was his body. He couldn't be still when he had a lead to pursue, he craved elucidation during a case the way most people craved orgasm during sex. Right now, he was aching, _physically_ aching with the strain of waiting around for it, doing nothing. He had started with pacing random patterns around the sitting room, then he had fetched his violin and scraped erratically at it as he continued to pace. Within an hour he had begun talking to himself as he pounded around the flat, and as if the fidgeting and the screeching weren't bad enough, after a while the snarling and muttering were finally too much for John to tolerate.

"Sherlock…" he pleaded, head buried in his hands.

The detective in question paid him no mind, dragging out a long, keening note and growling "…goes hand-in-hand with pyromania."

"Sherlock!" He bellowed finally, "_shut the hell up!_"

He paused, flourished his bow dramatically like a fencing foil, and dropped the violin to his hip. "Problem?" He demanded, voice dripping with resentment.

"Yes, it's a problem, you're driving me absolutely bloody mad!" John fumed, pressing his hands to his ears.

"Oh really?" He spat "Welcome to the inside of my brain," He plucked defiantly at the strings and spun in a circle on the spot, feet veritably twitching with agitation.

"_Sit down!_" He shouted, pointing to the chair as if he were putting a child in time-out.

"_I don't want to sit down!_" It was a full-blown shouting match now.

John leapt to his feet and crossed the room, drawing himself up as much as possible, hoping that his determination would match Sherlock's considerably superior height. "I will _sedate_ you, Sherlock, so help me God!"

"_You just try it._" Sherlock snarled, bending down slightly to force the challenge into John's face.

John clenched his teeth, and Sherlock braced for a firm punch across the face, but what John actually did was not quite what Sherlock had expected.

His hands shot up and his fingertips clamped to either side of the detective's head, locking him in place, and then began to gyrate in slow circles.

Sherlock froze, bristling like a feral cat, and everything in him screamed to pull away, but he was arrested in that impulse almost immediately. His cheeks burned right down to the roof of his mouth, but that odd little circular motion was so…soothing. He stood motionless and John's hands kept working, thumbs on his temples, the rest of his fingers splayed through his hair, massaging his brain. He had never thought that he was susceptible to hypnotism, he had defied a number of psychiatrists in such attempts, but now…now…this…ungh…

He sank, slowly, smoothly, to his knees and his head, through no fault of his own and entirely without his intention, tipped heavily against John's left thigh. The doctor balked and began to stammer a protest, but his hands didn't stop, and Sherlock didn't respond except to exhale loudly. He couldn't have said with any certainty how long he remained there, his forehead soaked with the warmth radiating from John's leg, pleasurable tingles lapping at the corners of his overworked brain, but he could say definitely, absolutely, how badly it hurt when John's knee jerked reflexively and cracked him in the chest as the doctor jumped and gasped "_Christ_, Mrs. Hudson!"

Sherlock coughed painfully and rocked back onto his heels, glaring murderously upward.

"Mrs. Hudson, I –" he stuttered, his face flushing bright pink, "this is definitely not what it looks like."

Their interloping landlady was trying very admirably to hide her giggles behind the hand pressed to her mouth. "Oh it's no business of mine, dears," she snickered, waving the comment off like so many flecks of dust, "but do remember to close your door if you need a _moment_." She made a great show of "whispering" the last word, though if anything it was louder than the rest of the sentence.

John could only tilt his head back and sigh in exasperation.

"I've just come up to drop off your mail, the postman confuses A and B at least once a week," she brandished the handful of advertisements defensively as she crossed the room to set it on the coffee table.

"Yes, erm, thank you…" John rarely combined the throat-clearing tell and the lip-moistening tell, but he must have been rather seriously embarrassed, because he employed both. As if the flush in his neck and face wasn't enough.

"I'll just leave boys you to it then," she offered, backing out of the room and shooting them one last amused look as she shut the door.

John turned to Sherlock immediately and threw out his hands. "Sherlock, why didn't you say anything to her?" He hissed, lacing his fingers behind his head and taking a step back.

Sherlock straightened up and brushed himself off indignantly. "Oh, excuse me, I was busy having the wind knocked out of me." He growled.

"Yes well…sorry...but I don't see why you had to…" he trailed off, looking down awkwardly at his thigh and groaning slightly.

"What would I have said in your defence?" Sherlock demanded, "Beg pardon, Mrs. Hudson, the good doctor was just rubbing me a bit. I found it very relaxing. Does that really sound better? Besides, her opinions regarding the nature of our relationship were determined the day we moved in, nothing either of us says or does will change that."

"Oh, god…" John sighed, dropping his hands to his sides again.

"Oh, what does it matter?" Sherlock snapped, "Your fear of my Y chromosome is, frankly, ridiculous."

"It's not that! I just…" he forced an exhale through his teeth and shifted his weight. There were a few tense seconds in which he said nothing, but to Sherlock's surprise, he smiled and began to chuckle slightly. "It just occurred to me…" he muttered, planting one hand on his hip and pressing the other over his eyes.

"What?" Sherlock sneered.

"As a matter of consequence," he qualified, "and in a purely circumstantial sort of way, you and I have _slept together_. Twice."

"Problem?" He repeated, brows furrowed.

John, like some sort of mechanical toy that had short-circuited, made the executive decision to simply walk in a tight circle and look up at the ceiling before repeating. "Is it a problem?" He sighed, "I guess it isn't. I feel like it should be, but it isn't, for _some_ reason, because when anything is applied to you, Sherlock, ordinary rules just…pfft." He flung his hands out dismissively.

"So" Sherlock concluded for him, as the doctor retreated to drop heavily onto the sofa, "regardless of what you might say, Mrs. Hudson will likely continue to assume that I was…" he waved his hand absently, "attempting to fellate you - " John groaned something that sounded like another "oh god," but he did so quietly " – but considering that that certainly wasn't the case, you will do well to stop concerning yourself with it."

"I suppose I might as well," he moaned, pressing his palms to his face. "I have a strange feeling that this won't be the last…sexually ambiguous situation we find ourselves in…"

"It certainly isn't the first," Sherlock reminded him.

John giggled through his hands and Sherlock couldn't help but smile, resting his hands on his hips and tapping his bare foot.

"I need tea," John decided, dropping his hands to his knees and giving Sherlock a look that told him he needed tea as well.

"Please." Sherlock agreed with a smile, turning to collapse into the grey chair and tilting his head back.

_Well_, he thought, watching John putter around the kitchen, _whatever that was, it worked._

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><p>It had been eight hours, and John was on edge.<p>

"Ugh, change it over, I hate when they do that." He snatched the remote control from Sherlock's thigh before the detective could even make a move toward it and poked rather viciously at the buttons.

Sherlock did not protest, but he tilted his head carefully to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that John found so objectionable before the channel flicked out. He had been paying exactly no attention to the programme until that exact moment.

"You hate...medical dramas," he extrapolated, glancing over as John skimmed vacantly through the few remaining channels, "because, as a doctor, you find them frustratingly inaccurate."

John paused, pursing his lips. "Well, in general, yeah, they're annoying, but I _specifically_ hate it when writers decide that the easiest way to initiate shagging between sexy male lead A and sexy female lead B is for someone to collapse or drown or have a fit, then the other somebody has to give the first somebody mouth-to-mouth. And then suddenly it's _snogging_ and carrying on..." He trailed off and took a placating sip of long-cold tea, realising that his fervour was perhaps a bit misplaced.

"It's a trope. People are shallow, people will sexualize anything." Sherlock said dismissively, returning his attention to the telly. A subtle stillness fell over him as the bluish artificial light flickered over his pale face.

John distracted himself with his mug, not quite taking his lips from the rim for a moment. "It's not...sexy," he murmured, suddenly grave as he cleared his throat and lowered his cup, "In real life, it's...it's terrifying. You're there with someone who's blue and...motionless...and dead, effectively, and you're _desperately_ trying to...to breathe life back into them. And if you fail, it's over...it's your fault. You couldn't save them." His hand was shaking so violently that he had to lower his mug to his thigh to keep from spilling it. He set his jaw and refused to look directly at Sherlock. Sherlock didn't remember, of course, he had been unconscious, there's no way he could have been aware of that moment John had spent frantically reviving him, but John remembered vividly enough for the both of them, and Sherlock certainly wasn't stupid enough not to realise. The disquiet radiating from him was enough to soften even the detective's penetrating gaze.

Dozens of men had died under his hands, and he felt some measure of guilt for each one, he carried it with him even now, but in his head he knew that none of them had truly been his fault. He had done his best, done everything he could, but their wounds or their illnesses had beaten his expertise and care. He had accepted this each time, with resolve and with dignity. But now, now he shook as he sat beside his warm, living, breathing friend and could think of nothing but _if he had died, it would have been my fault._

"John?" Sherlock invited, barely a whisper, as he turned his gaze to the floor.

He swallowed. "Yeah?"

"Thank you."

Slowly, John nodded. Breathing deeply, he gradually collected himself, adjusted his grip on his mug and glanced encouragingly at his eccentric friend. "I suppose it would have seemed a bit less serious if I had just pretended you were some, I dunno, daytime drama actress." He dared to smile slightly and was relieved when Sherlock did likewise. "Although I'm sure you would have preferred that_ I_ was the sexy actress, seeing as I ended up in your bed all night."

Sherlock made perhaps the most mirthful snorting sound John had ever heard and tipped his head back onto the sofa, smiling broadly.

"Oh, right," John remembered, slightly embarrassed, "women...not your area."

"That's not what I said," Sherlock insisted, "I said girlfriends are not my area."

John was slightly taken aback. "So...what the hell does that mean?"

Sherlock was silent for a moment. "Let's just say," he decided, "that if I ever met a woman half as interesting as you, I would marry her immediately. And then I would wake up from the ridiculous dream I was having."

John wasn't sure if he should feel flattered or uncomfortable, but what he did feel - in spite of himself - was mostly flattered. "I'll make you a deal then," John grinned, still eager to lighten the mood a bit. Sherlock lifted his head from the cushion and looked at his friend dubiously. "If we make it to...let's say sixty," he continued, "no, sixty-five, just to be safe. If we both make it to sixty-five and we're both still...peculiar, bachelor flatmates, _I'll_ marry you just to see the priceless looks on the faces of the Yarders."

"You're three years older than me," Sherlock pointed out, apparently completely unfazed.

"Yes, and that gives me three years of technicality space to get out of that agreement if I reach sixty-five and realise what I've done with my life."

Sherlock chuckled. "What makes you so sure I'd have you?"

"Oh, will you shut up! I'm just making an effort to be nice to you, not that you deserve it."

Sherlock giggled uncontrollably and John couldn't resist a broad smile as he sighed.

"For the record, John," Sherlock added, "I will consider your proposal carefully..."

"Stop that, it wasn't a proposal!"

"Would our relationship then necessitate physical intimacy? Because I must warn you, I'm a rather violent sleeper..."

_"_Christ, this is the last time I make a joke at my own expense for the sake of the world's only consulting detective."


	16. Breaking and Entering

AN: Good news, everyone! Updates will be back to every day/every other day, because I've worked out all my plot kinks and because exams are over (and I passed everything!) Now excuse me while I go write some more humorous drabbles for Anything You can Do, because the thickening of this plot is making my palms sweat, and I'm the one writing it.

Enjoy!

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><p>The night had been long, very long.<p>

Neither had slept. Both had tried, but it had been quite a pointless notion. There was too much eagerness, too much anxiety, too much excitement charging the air between them to let them sleep. John had retreated to his room for an hour, but had realized that if he was just going to roll around fitfully on his bed, he might as well expend his excess energy doing something useful. He had trudged back downstairs to find Sherlock – uncharacteristically and rather amusingly adorned with safety goggles and a respirator – occupying himself with a truly noxious-smelling series of experiments.

Sherlock had asked the bleary and pyjamaed John to hand him a notepad, and he had done so. Then Sherlock had handed him a test tube and asked him to neutralize an acid, and he had done so, and before he knew it, he was equipped with his own goggles and respirator – which did not help in the least with the smell – and was properly assisting the eccentric genius with measurements and pipettes and tweezers as he chemically stripped the flesh from a mouse carcass. Sherlock had never really requested his help in kitchen lab before, and John had never really offered it, but in the silent fluorescent light of that very early morning at Baker Street, and in anticipation of the ever-nearing mission ahead, the two men had entered into a wordless symbiotic state, each feeding on the other's anticipation.

The dark hours ticked past them, marked by one small chemical fire, one broken beaker, and no fewer than fifty-eight watch-checks; thirty-five from John and twenty-three from Sherlock.

It had been fifteen hours, and it was time for action.

Sherlock checked his watch one last time, then met John's eyes and nodded. They snatched up shoes, coats, and – under the guise of looking for a torch – Sherlock pulled open the desk drawer and slipped John's pistol into his coat pocket.

"Coming?" John asked, turning to glance back from the door.

"Yep." Sherlock replied nonchalantly, "finding" the torch suddenly and brushing past him down the stairs, hands still buried in his pockets.

They took a cab to a street corner nearly half a mile from the house to avoid prying eyes, and though John watched carefully, Sherlock's gait was swift, steady, and confident.

"We'll have to be quick," the detective warned, "we won't have more than half an hour, and we'll have to be very careful about what we disturb and what we leave for Lestrade to find."

"What do you need me to do?"

"You'll go to the basement, where you'll find a smallish trunk freezer."

"How do you know?"

"Because people don't keep frozen semen in their kitchens."

John pursed his lips. "Right."

"There will be more than one vial, take one, leave the rest."

"What are you going to do?"

Sherlock seemed to be measuring his answer carefully. "I'm going to figure out what was so important to Adrienne Van Orden that he killed three little girls to secure it."

Sherlock was often evasive – very often, but John knew him well enough by now that something in the detective's tone set him on edge. He opened his mouth to press the matter further, but Sherlock cut him off.

"I'll pick the lock on the back door" he decided, taking a bafflingly roundabout route to reach the house in question, "front door is too conspicuous, there may already be neighbors awake. It'll lead into the kitchen. I'll stay there and you'll head for the basement. If you see anything down there that looks suspicious, especially small, blunt implements or anything that could be used as a garrotte, check it for blood and photograph it, but be quick, this is not a crime scene investigation. I'll have a poke around some things, then find the linen closet to compare the blue sheet, that's likely upstairs, and I'll meet you back in the kitchen. With any luck we'll be in and out in five minutes."

"I wouldn't say we're terribly lucky, you and I."

Sherlock glanced at him dubiously. "With _intelligence_ and _diligence_, we'll be in and out in five minutes."

John realized a bit belatedly that Sherlock had led then down an alley to a parallel street, one that approached the back of the house, flanked by tiny city gardens and cellar doors. He dropped his voice to a whisper, knowing that there were likely at least a few very early risers on this street.

"Sherlock?"

"Not now."

"Sherlock, there's something you're not telling me. You know what it is that the kid was after, you realised something the second you looked in through the front door, you're just trying to confirm it. What are you looking for? Tell me."

"Shh!" He slipped into a slow, crouching creep as they approached the grayish, windowed aluminum door set into the back of the Van Ordens' house. He threw a scathing look back toward his companion to keep him silent and dug in his jacket pocket for the little leather envelope that housed his lock picking set.

John's jaw clenched in irritation as Sherlock knelt beside him and began clicking and scraping softly at the doorknob with his squiggly little bits of metal.

So. This was him being treated like a dog again? The moment he wasn't saving Sherlock's life his only function was to follow blindly, to follow someone who wouldn't even tell him where he was being led. Theirs was truly a bipolar relationship, one moment absolute trust, the next a gaping rift. When exactly was he to be privy to the mind of the great Sherlock Holmes? His throat burned with the rawness of his indignation, but now was not the time (now was never the time, was it?) and he kept his mouth shut.

Sherlock's head snapped up at the next click and with practiced care he eased the door open quietly and nodded John inside ahead of him. John, stiffly, obliged. The door opened into a narrow, tiled hallway, which in turn led into the small but well-furnished kitchen. Sherlock didn't even raise his head to look around, the only move he made was a beeline to the very next door on the left, which he pulled open to reveal an unlit staircase leading to the basement. How he had known which door was which, John had no idea, but the doctor glanced down into the inky abyss with more fear than he would have admitted. Fear of the dark is primal. It's something you're born with.

Sherlock leaned so close that his lips nearly brushed John's ear and whispered, quietly but clearly: "don't turn on any overhead lights," he extracted the torch from his pocket and John took it, "there are three high windows at the front of the house, so keep the beam low. I'll be either here or upstairs when you return, if I'm not in the kitchen, wait for me there, I won't be a minute." John nodded and with a final weighted look at the detective, plunged into the darkness.

Sherlock did not shut the door behind him, but waited until the sound of John's hesitant footsteps reached the bottom of the staircase before turning hurriedly back to the kitchen. The calendar was still clipped on the fridge, and still damningly turned to November rather than the current month of October, but by itself it was inconsequential.

"Where have you hidden it, you little bastard?" He mouthed to himself, running his hand over the circled date, the fourteenth. "You didn't destroy it, it's important to you. It's not hidden well, you were panicking. Where did you throw it?" He glanced around, his eyes jumping across each of the eight drawers arrayed beneath the countertop. _Junk drawer_. Wear pattern around the edges, obvious. He crossed the room and pulled it open, only to be met with a litany of papers and scraps and brochures. _Forest for the trees? Not all that terribly clever, but then, you are only eleven._ He plunged his hand into the mess and sifted through, knowing exactly what he was looking for, but taking care to be systematic. His fingers began to fumble impatiently as he reached the bottom of the pile, wondering if he had underestimated the child's ingenuity, but with a small, irrepressible cry of triumph, his fingers closed around it.

Nothing more than a small pamphlet, the glossy, thin, black pamphlet that he had glimpsed the day before when it had been clipped to the refrigerator, a pamphlet that no-one else would have looked twice at, but which had made Sherlock's hair stand on end as he had seen it from all the way at the other end of the house, through the crack of the open front door.

He hadn't been sure then; the paper had been far away, the writing small, and he had seen it for only an instant, but he was sure now as he read the bold, white, serif title on the cover.

His pulse thumped loudly in his ears once – only once, then was still.

**The Powers Institute**

The coat of arms beneath contained a shield, a bottom quarter of which contained a tiny, stylized, cameo-style profile. For Sherlock Holmes, a profile he would have recognized anywhere.

It was bait.

It was a game.

He straightened up, pamphlet in hand, his breath coming slightly faster, the corner of his mouth twitching, somewhere on the border between a grimace and a smile.

He heard footsteps, the softest, most measured of footsteps behind him, and quiet, hesitant breathing. He started to turn, an excited whisper of "John!" already condensing on his parted lips, but it never got an instant further. The name never escaped his mouth.

The pain shot through him like so many volts, blossoming hot and cold at once as it radiated from the freshly-torn skin and nerves, thin muscle and punctured membrane just beneath the bottom of his ribcage. Even before the first thick rush of blood bathed his side his head began to spin. The glossy black pamphlet fluttered to the floor.

He'd been stabbed before, he knew.


	17. Hatred and Electricity

_Don't faint._ He clenched his teeth and found himself fumbling blindly to brace himself against the countertop. _Don't, god, don't…_If ever there was a time for mind over matter, for sheer force of will… He blanched, overwhelmed with nausea. _No use._

He did not register the tapping of footsteps on the stairs, the murmur of "Sherlock?" over his shoulder; he was reeling, falling into thick, roiling blackness.

He would certainly have lost consciousness, would have fallen, maybe bled out, maybe died silently here, had the sudden buzz and snap of electricity not ripped a primal, agonized scream from John's throat, throwing him to the floor where he convulsed helplessly, just a few steps from the detective.

That scream – not a shout, but a true, wretched, irrepressible scream – swept the swirling colours from inside his eyes and anchored him, firm as concrete, in the moment, in the searing pain. He reached beneath his jacket and pressed his left hand as hard as he could against the sodden tear in his shirt. Blood seeped between his fingers, and a thick rivulet had already reached his hip. It didn't matter, it wasn't important now. He turned.

Adrienne Van Orden's dark, cold eyes met his gaze, the boy's awareness of his own position of power giving them weight, depth, authority. He was crouched over John's supine form, and he made absolutely sure that Sherlock was watching as he pulled up the dazed doctor's jumper and undershirt, exposing his bare stomach, and pressed the cold metal teeth of a stun gun to his diaphragm. His pale mouth twitched as he glanced down at his writhing, semiconscious victim, then, very deliberately, pressed the trigger again.

The gun clicked loudly and every muscle in John's body pulled beyond taut, back arched, chest expanded, as another violent cry escaped his gasping mouth.

"Stop it!" Sherlock roared, trying to take a step closer, but finding that his trembling legs wouldn't quite obey him. With his right hand he fumbled to reach his pocket, his unsteady fingers closing on the grip of John's pistol.

"I wouldn't do that," Adrienne cooed, releasing the trigger and allowing John's still-twitching body to slump to the tile floor. He turned slightly to show Sherlock his other hand, which held a blood-streaked kitchen knife. The detective bristled before realizing that it was his own blood tingeing the metal, not John's. The boy adjusted his grip, then pressed the blade firmly to John's throat. "Your hands are unsteady," he confirmed, eyes sweeping over the detective's arm. "Sure, you could shoot me, but odds are pretty good that I'd have a conscious second or two to give this one a little press…" he forced the blade harder against John's flesh, drawing a thin line of blood, "or hit the zapper," he thumbed the trigger demonstrably, "and if he twitches like that again I'll almost certainly slice him open, whether I intend to or not."

Sherlock froze, but his hand remained defiantly on the Sig.

"Oh, and the floor's real tile, not linoleum. He hit his head pretty hard when he fell, so I doubt he'll be snapping up to overpower me. I mean, I know I'm smaller, but…" he gave John's leg a little kick, provoking only a soft groan and a vacant turn of the doctor's head.

"Played sick, I suppose? Convinced your mother to leave without you." Sherlock assumed. He felt himself leaning forward slightly, and fought to straighten up, but god, the pain in his side was immense…even his breathing was growing laboured.

He shrugged, "not difficult, she's not stupid enough to argue with me."

Sherlock tried to swallow, but nothing went down. "What do you intend me to do?" He asked, his voice shallow and unsteady, even to his own ears.

Adrienne grimaced. Without hesitation, he lessened the pressure of the knife on John's throat and pressed the stun gun again, and John convulsed as dramatically as before, eyes squeezed shut, hands clenched, but his cry of pain was now hardly a moan, half choked by his raw throat. As he went limp this time, Sherlock saw blood oozing slowly from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Adrienne was clearly enjoying it, his eyes glittered as he watched the doctor fight to draw breath. "You have a few options," the boy explained, "the best of which would be to run. Go for help, because you don't have long now, Mr. Holmes. You're losing blood fast." He smiled and tapped the knife casually on John's skin, leaving a few shallow nicks. "Basically, three: first, you run, get the police, save yourself, present what you have against me and solve the case, and I kill John Watson. Second, you can shoot me, exposing me, but making a murderer of yourself, and I kill John Watson. Third, you can stand there like an idiot until you bleed out, I get off free as a bird, spin some story about defending myself, and I kill John Watson."

"So zero options, really," Sherlock surmised, his voice catching slightly now.

"I disagree. Two out of three, you solve the case _and_ you live. It's not half bad, really." He thumbed the trigger again, clearly itching to zap his victim again. Instead, he carved a few more deep lines into John's jaw. Sherlock's chest quivered, and not from the stab wound. The doctor didn't so much as flinch at the bite of the knife, and his rapid breaths looked strained, erratic. Sherlock knew that with each successive shock, the likelihood of ventricular fibrillation – and inherently of heart failure - increased exponentially, and the stun gun was undoubtedly at its highest setting. John had been shocked three times now, all of them drawn out over several seconds. How strong was his heart?

In spite of his tremulous hand and obviously weak grip, he drew the pistol from his pocket and levelled it until Adrienne was staring down the shaking barrel. Blood had reached his right shoe now, he could feel it, sticky and cooling, and he heard it drip-dripping intermittently on the tile floor. He estimated quickly that about half a pint now soaked his skin and clothes, but the wound wasn't wide, it was deep. It had almost certainly punctured his liver, and there must be internal bleeding as well. It had been about three minutes. He calculated that had perhaps fifteen more – if he was lucky, if he stayed conscious, if he kept pressure on the wound – before he was beyond saving. Something decisive needed to be done. Soon.

The boy raised his eyebrow and repositioned the knife, jabbing the tip directly into John's carotid, creating a divot in the soft flesh of his neck. "I was hoping you wouldn't go for option two," he admitted.

_Keep him talking._ "What did he promise you?" Sherlock panted, "money? Power? A bloodbath, what? You knew it wasn't about the grant and the school, you've known it for months. They aren't even real. What was it then?"

Adrienne smiled that pale, mirthless, un-childlike smile. "He promised me _everything_. The whole big, bad world, Mr. Holmes. And unlike any other person on earth, he can give it to me. Him and him alone. _He_ understands me. Do you know what that's like?" The boy's eyes were wide with fervour, with admiration, with pain. "Do you have any idea what it's like to have people you don't even know telling you how you _should_ be thinking, how you _should_ be feeling, how there's something terribly, terribly wrong with you?" A deep red pearl of blood welled at the knife point, then dripped from John's still throat. "Until finally someone, a complete _stranger_, comes to you out of nowhere and tells you that you're valuable, that you're special, that you matter. A stranger sees you for what you really are when the people around you only see a freak. Do you know what that's like, Mr. Holmes?"

Sherlock's icy grip tightened on the trigger. He could feel his own weak pulse in his fingertip.

"You've cut yourself down to options two and three," he noticed, his voice descending from its fanatical pitch, "you couldn't run now if you tried, I could easily overtake you and stab you again before you reached the door. And this one certainly isn't going anywhere." He exemplified this by pressing the knife a fraction harder, drawing another dark droplet of blood from John's skin. The doctor didn't stir, gave no indication that he felt anything, but through the blur creeping across the corner of his vision, Sherlock thought he saw the glimmer of John's eyes opening just a crack.

"You or me, Mr. Holmes," Adrienne reminded him. "Never mind Dr. Watson here, it's you or me."

* * *

><p>Once, in basic training, John had gotten…what was the technical term? Oh yeah, "the living shit zapped out of him" when he had accidentally laid his hand on a high-voltage electric fence. It hadn't knocked him out or anything, just made his ears ring and his hand glow an angry red for a few hours. He remembered what a friend of his had said that night as he had described it. "Electrocution isn't technically pain, you know. It tricks your brain, the synapses and stuff, but it's just a nerve overload, like when your house has a power surge." He had raised his eyebrows doubtfully at the time and vowed that he would remember to look that up. He had forgotten about it as soon as the tingling in his hands had diminished.<p>

He knew now that it was bollocks, because he knew what pain felt like, and Christ, he was in pain now. In spite of being somehow numb everywhere, from the inside of his nose to his kneecaps, every conceivable inch of him was lit up like Christmas with reeling, pounding, burning, nauseating pain, and he couldn't care less what it _technically_ was, because he was fairly sure he was dying from it. He was vaguely aware that there was a knife to his throat, likewise that he probably had at least a mild concussion, but it all seemed very trifling. Regardless of what the demon child did to him, he couldn't possibly be in a shred more agony than he was in already.

Wrong.

The boy pressed the trigger again, and for a blissful fraction of a second he thought he was going to black out, but a tough-as-nails constitution didn't always serve him well, it seemed, because he held on. There was liquid in his throat. He choked, but his chest was too numb, too stiff to cough it out, forcing him to gasp for air through the burn of fluid in his lungs.

_Sherlock, god, Sherlock...please_. His tongue was like a heavy wad of marshmallow, and he found that he could no more call out for Sherlock than he could fight the kid off himself.

But where _was_ Sherlock? Why wasn't he doing something? Sherlock wouldn't let him lie here suffering like this, he would never...

_Unless…_

It seemed, in spite of the truly pitiful state his body was in, he could still feel panic, and the insistent shove of adrenaline that came with it. He pried his burning eyes open, just a sliver, and even in the near perfect darkness, even through the dizziness and the half-lucid haze, he saw the way Sherlock's shadowy figure stood, bent heavily, clutching at his abdomen. He saw the dark pool of blood at his feet and the gun trembling in his hand. He couldn't turn his head to see the boy, but he could feel his posture based on the two points of metal, one cool, one burning hot, pressed against his skin.

He was losing focus rapidly, and he had only the most tenuous control of trembling his body, but he had to do something. One of them had to.

* * *

><p>Sherlock was no longer sure that he even had the strength to pull the trigger if it came to that. His hand was numb. Two and a half pints now, he guessed? He could lose four, forty percent, and still live, with aggressive medical care, but lucidity only held out for about two pints, usually. This was it. Did he dare take the shot? He wasn't even sure he was aiming at Adrienne anymore. His vision was going, and going fast.<p>

_This is it_. Dying was the only word for it. He was dying, and he was letting John die. _Take the shot. At least the boy dies too. That won't fix it, though. Won't save him, wouldn't save either of us._ He wondered if the boy's hand would really twitch hard enough to slit his throat. Wondered if he could even manage to hit the boy. He could hit John for Christ's sake, he could miss completely. But if he took the shot, there was some slim fraction of a chance that John would live. If he didn't, John would certainly die.

He inhaled sharply, trying for a moment of focus, trying for even a second of clarity. He had to take the shot. Had to. Now.

His finger curled, drawing the trigger back.

* * *

><p>It took everything John had, every fraction of resolve, every ounce of that iron will to snap through the sea of agony, to regain control for just an instant.<p>

His arm jerked forward, catching Adrienne's – the left – and in that instant of explosive movement he finally blacked out. Hearing was the last thing to go, always was. He remembered. He heard the buzz and snap of the electricity and – as though from a great distance – the sound of a pistol shot.


	18. Fear and Pain

AN: Just as a disclaimer, I've never actually been inside a British hospital, only an American one, so if there are any little devilish details that I skewed, feel free to point them out to me and I'll fix them.

And now, my Christmas gift to you all: the resolution of my dreadful cliffhanger. Enjoy.

* * *

><p><em>This is the way the world ends<em>

_ Not with a bang but a whimper._

He heard sirens, he was cold, he couldn't see. These were the most critical things, the things he realised immediately, but he didn't understand why. He struggled to cling to the sound, but within seconds he blacked out again.

His hand flexed and he felt something pliant. Cloth. Wool? The side of his face was warm.

_John?_

He fumbled blindly to try and determine what he was touching, what he was lying on, if that something was alive, but his hands were so numb, cold, and his mind was so...empty. Something bumped him, sending pain shooting up his ribs, and then someone was touching his back, his head.

He lost wide, empty fragments of time and movement, having no notion of where he was, what was happening, how much time had passed, even which way was up, finding that lucidity broke upon him in flashes of pain and panic, punctuated by the relief of absolute blackness.

He gasped. The light above him was blinding, surging in torrents through his crystalline eyes to white out his brain. Sounds, movement, urgent voices shouting. Someone was touching him, frantically, pawing at the buttons of his shirt. Latex gloves. They pulled unpleasantly at his skin. Something beeped repeatedly, his head spun, he felt nauseous.

He heard the click of his belt buckle.

Air rushed into his lungs and in spite of a crippling surge of pain he snapped bolt upright, his hand darting out to catch the thin wrist that had strayed beneath his navel. He would never have guessed that he had such a rush of strength left, but he didn't relinquish his grip.

"Sherlock, let go. Let go, it's alright!"

He didn't, wouldn't. But that voice was familiar.

"You're hurting her, Sherlock, stop!"

A cool, firm hand closed over his own and forcibly pried his fingers from the poor orderly's wrist. Someone pressed him back down onto his back.

"Can you hear me?" There was a needle's prick in the crook of his arm, then another, then a third, now yet another at the back of his hand. "Sherlock?"

He didn't fight to stay conscious when the darkness crept back through him; he surrendered, let everything melt away.

When he finally came to again, it was gently this time, slowly. Everything was quiet, just a hum and some distant blips. There was an oxygen mask pressed uncomfortably to his nose and mouth and he dragged his hand up lethargically to explore it with his slightly numb fingers. They'd given him morphine, he identified the sensation immediately. Though, admittedly, it was with good reason this time. His mouth had never been so dry in his life.

He felt the IV in his hand as the needle shifted beneath his skin, the persistent ache in his midsection, the thin cotton sheets.

He was alive, then. Good show. Someone must have acted quickly. More quickly than he would have expected.

His eyes drifted open slowly.

_Ugh, light blue. How predictable._

It was more or less the only thing he could see. His vision was shit, recovering, but slowly. Brain hadn't quite switched back on yet.

The sudden rustling near his head seemed so deafening by comparison that he blinked rapidly in surprise.

"Christ, you awake already? They told me it'd be a while."

Lestrade. It was Lestrade's voice. The same voice from before.

He pressed harder at the bottom of the clear plastic-and-rubber mask until he succeeded in prying it off his mouth and over the top of his head. He gulped in good old-fashioned nitrogen/oxygen/argon/carbon dioxide. Pure oxygen wasn't the sort of high he needed right now.

"Now don't - " too late. Lestrade sighed in defeat and leaned back in his chair. "I could've just called you a nurse..."

"Where's John?" He could now see well enough to know that he and Lestrade were the only ones in this room. This was unacceptable.

"He's alive, he'll be fine."

Sherlock's heart could have stopped in that instant and he would hardly have noticed for the wellspring of relief that poured into his chest.

"Where?" Sherlock repeated, hissing through his teeth.

"Calm down, he's the next floor up. There was something different about his processing, just a technicality."

"Get me my phone," he ordered, holding out his trembling hand as though he expected it to materialize.

"It's in evidence. You can't call him anyway; he was till unconscious, last I heard. Trust me when I tell you, he's alright, he's in good hands."

Sherlock managed a hollow snort.

"Oh, stop it." Lestrade fidgeted a bit, producing a pad and pen. "They told me not to get you worked up, they just let you out of exploratory surgery and you've had three pints of blood transfused, but since you're feeling so...animated, would you mind giving me a preliminary statement? I'm going to have a hell of a time keeping you out of jail, considering you broke into a home carrying an illegal firearm and shot an eleven-year-old. I need as much of the story as I can get so that I can spin it in the most...creatively legal way possible."

Sherlock's eyes fell closed as he sighed. He had shot the boy. The boy and not John. "Is he dead?"

"No, thank god, you clipped the side of his head, shredded his ear, and he fainted. If you'd killed him we'd have had another matter on our hands entirely."

He was silent as he inhaled slowly. "Mariana Van Orden killed those girls, at the behest and with the help of her son, Adrienne. The mother will tell you that they were competition for a music grant, she's wrong. Speak with the boy, he knows, though he may not tell you outright."

Lestrade stopped writing and looked up. "We know a bit about that. The mother had a sort of breakdown when she returned home to find three bodies on her kitchen floor, one of which was her son. We're working a confession out of her. And she did say that, something about a music school in Switzerland. That's what you yourself were on about the day before yesterday, isn't it? But you're saying there was something else now?

Sherlock groaned softly. Now that he was fully awake the pain in his side was spiking, and Lestrade was hardly helping matters. He needed another shot of...something. "It was another blind. Ingenious. The boy knows, knows something at least," he countered, taking a breath to elaborate, but he winced as a stabbing twinge set off little stars in his eyes. "The mother was a tool, she doesn't fully understand, but Adrienne..." he continued, but his chest felt suddenly crushed by paralysis. He gave a strangled cough and Lestrade sprang to his feet and rushed from the room.

Sherlock found himself prickly and irritable as the nurse – nice though she was – adjusted his dosages. Rather than admitting that he was just a bit jaded to the morphine, he instead opted to slightly exaggerate his pain scale to get a functional amount. Just as she was leaving she smiled – she really was a terribly sweet girl – and touched the back of his hand gently. Sherlock reflexively withdrew his arm and glared at her.

"Excuse him, he's sort of an arse. He can't help it." Lestrade said, rather lamely. He turned back to Sherlock, tucking his pen back into his pocket. "We'll do this when you're a bit more capable, yeah?"

Sherlock just worked his jaw. He wasn't used to being incapacitated, and twice in less than a week was just short of sacrilege. He moved his head in a way that Lestrade chose to interpret as a nod and as he stood to leave he offered a hesitant but genuine "Get yourself fixed up, Sherlock. We may need you yet."

Sherlock was not interested in "getting fixed up." He was interested in _being_ fixed _now_, and he was interested in thundering up a certain flight of non-slip stairs. Likewise, he was interested in bursting into the room of one John Watson, just for the sake of seeing his chest rise and fall, just a few times, just because he himself had never quite learned to trust. He'd never had reason to.

He took a deep breath, one that smelled of plastic and disinfectant and other, stranger, more unsettling hospital things. He wanted to be back in his own bed, back in 221B where it smelled like books and wool and home.

That extra morphine (plenty of extra) was kicking in, and god, he was tired. Drifting again, in spite of the frustration and the pique, he was, really, profoundly fucking exhausted...

* * *

><p><em>Click.<em>

Fuck.

_Clatter._

Fuck

How could they possibly expect him to rest with all this "checking in" they kept doing? He would snap awake at anything; footsteps, the click of a button, even an overzealous gust of air as someone hurried past. It had happened three times now, a different nurse each time, but all saying more or less the same thing: "Just checking in," "checking in on you, love."

_Well, it's two a.m., so stop it. Piss off. I don't know you, I don't want you here; I don't even need you for anything, so go away and let me sulk in peace. And I am not your "love."_

He picked anxiously at the clear square of tape that kept the IV lead stuck firmly under his skin. It itched. No-one had checked in for over an hour, but still he was not falling sleep. With an involuntary, antsy flinch he ripped the corner of the skin tape painfully from the back of his hand. _God, that smarts_. In spite of the red, angry swelling of his stripped skin he had to fight to resist the urge to peel the tape the rest of the way off. Grudgingly, he pressed it back down, now white with his skin cells and sticking only feebly.

He had never wanted to roll onto his side so badly in his life, and he knew that it was only because he couldn't that he felt such an interminable urge. His back was stiff and he and tried everything he could without twisting too abruptly, but it didn't help.

Finally, after a great deal of twitching and toe-wiggling and snarling quietly to himself in discomfort and frustration, he gingerly pushed himself into a sitting position and flexed out his shoulders. Maybe it was the medication, but he was in a very minimal amount of pain, more like a bad cramp in his side than a stab wound. He twisted a bit more, sighing quietly to himself.

From sitting up to standing wasn't such a monumental leap, now was it? He tapped his fingers on the bed frame. Carefully, oh-so-very carefully, he set his teeth on edge in concentration and turned, kicking off the stiff, unwelcoming sheets and letting his bare feet edge off the mattress until he was properly sitting up.

It wasn't so bad. Not really. His posture wasn't perfect, but he'd just been stabbed a few hours before, what do you expect? Encouraged, he clamped his hands determinedly on the edge of the bed – ignoring the sting of the IV as his tendons pulled tight – and slid slowly to his feet.

A grunt of pain and repressed queasiness escaped his clenched teeth, but he kept his feet without too much difficulty. Thankfully someone had found it wise not to try and separate him from his underwear, in spite of the slightly scratchy patch of dried blood that soaked most of the right front side. The incident with the orderly and the urgency of his condition must have put the staff off the mission of undressing him fully, or...perhaps he had put up an entirely separate fight about the shorts. His memory of the last few hours was far from complete, but regardless, he was grateful to be more or less decent. He had no qualms with being naked, generally speaking, but if he was going to be naked, he was going to do it deliberately, tenaciously and on his own terms.

He took a few deep breaths. It wasn't so bad. A bit of gentle stretching, a bit of leaning on the hospital-standard bed frame and he had managed a few measured steps forward then, just to make sure he could, backward. As was his inclination, he tested, experimented, checked how far he could bend left or right at the waist before he felt a sharp twinge. He wiggled his toes, stood on one foot, then the other and eventually decided that, while he wouldn't be doing any running or jumping or climbing of fire escapes anytime soon, all things considered, he was in tolerably good shape.

Good enough to traipse around a hospital in the middle of the night? Good enough to handle a flight of stairs and a hallway or two? Maybe.


	19. Idiots and Choices

AN: We're coming to the end of out journey, guys. Only two chapters left after this.

* * *

><p>Paraesthesia. That was the word for it. That prickling, tickling, burning, numb-but-not-numb, painful-but-not-painful, <em>that <em>tingling. The pins and needles that let you know you had slept on your arm wrong. But he hadn't slept wrong, hadn't slept at all, _because_ of that prickling in his extremities. All of his skin felt strange, sort of slow and doughy, but his feet and his hands and tongue and about a square foot of skin on his abdomen tingled intermittently with paraesthesia.

Jaw tightly clenched, he had wiggled his fingers until they ached in an attempt to get rid of it, but it persisted. Never mind the second-degree electrical burns on his stomach and the severe migraine, the pain medication was handling most of that, it was the annoyance of that little discomfort that was driving him up the wall. He would have given just about anything for a half-decent distraction. He was ashamed for thinking it, but he rather wished something would explode or break or that there would be a power outage or something. Nothing harmful, the place had back-up generators, he didn't want anyone hurt, but Christ, he was going barking mad lying here staring at the ceiling with the itty-bitty telly on the wall yammering away. This must be what it was like to be Sherlock; this bored, _all the goddamn time_. No wonder he could get so snippy.

He sighed quietly and began to do something that he hadn't done in years; he ground his back teeth. Because he heard footsteps in the hallway, and if there was one thing worse than boredom, it was being annoyed by someone with good intentions. He turned his head away from the door and closed his eyes. He had pretended to be asleep the last time a nurse had come in, and she had been courteous enough to just check his IV and leave. Hopefully this one would be so considerate.

The quiet chattering on the telly and the click of his teeth in his skull covered the quiet scuffle of bare feet on the floor, but he could hardly keep from noticing the slight jolt against his bed and the pained growl that followed it. He peered out dubiously from beneath his eyelids.

"Christ. Oh...Christ, no." It was difficult, slurred. He had bitten his tongue rather severely hours ago and it was still swollen and painful, but he wasn't about to let a little pain stop him. It never had before. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and regarded Sherlock's pale, trembling visage with unabashed astonishment. "How the _hell_...? What are you doing?"

Sherlock swallowed thickly and didn't bother to hide how heavily he was leaning on John's bed frame. "Good to know how pleased you are to see me, John." He panted, blinking away a stinging droplet of sweat that had crept into the corner of his eye.

In spite of John's shock and alarm, some small part of him was positively wriggling with elation, because let's face it, "trust issues" was not obscure psychology jargon. He scolded himself and promptly labelled that gleeful little stirring an irresponsible emotion, because it was clear that Sherlock was in no way fit to be wandering about a hospital in the middle of the night. "How did you get up here? You're not even dressed. Didn't someone notice you wandering around?"

"You'd be surprised how little people notice," he brushed his hair from his damp forehead and put a great deal of his limited strength into regaining his composure. "And I've still got pants." He added indignantly.

"Well, that's a relief," John grumbled sarcastically, tipping his head back and shifting his throbbing tongue in his mouth. "Seriously, you can't be here. They really didn't notice you? What about the heart rate monitor, what about –" He looked down at Sherlock's hands and sure enough, there was a pink, swollen square where he had torn away the skin tape and pulled out the IV lead. He even had a little smear of blood to show for it. "That's how they administer the pain meds, you know," John reminded him dubiously.

Sherlock shrugged. "Oh, it's not so bad." He couldn't stand up properly, but comparatively, it wasn't the absolute worst pain he'd ever been in. "I reset the heart rate monitor, it's not even turned on anymore, and trust me, as long as you saunter like you own the place, a few half-asleep skeleton crew nurses aren't going to stop you."

The man was impossible. "Well...fuck it, but I'm glad to see you. Regardless of the irresponsibility of your personal choices." He almost laughed. "God, am I glad to see you."

Sherlock smiled, but the sudden twinge that shot through his midsection stifled whatever response he might have offered. John's face paled and he glanced tentatively at the call button.

"Don't." Sherlock panted, but the way he was standing, bent slightly, hand pressed to his bandaged stomach, was carving John's heart out with a spade. "I'm fine," he insisted, recomposing himself.

"You need medical attention," John insisted bluntly, even his voice tense, "you're not fit for this, you're nowhere near recovered."

"Pity I don't know any good doctors."

John regarded him in the way a parent might regard a particularly snarky child. "I'm calling a nurse." He never would have admitted it, not in a million years, but if he had really wanted Sherlock gone, if he had really wanted to hit that button, he wouldn't have announced it first, just as he wouldn't have hesitated for several seconds before raising his hand, knowing and expecting the firm grip of Sherlock's cool fingers on his wrist, stopping him. If you had asked he would have chalked it up to the morphine. Slow reflexes.

"Don't." He repeated. And John didn't.

For a long while they stared at one another in silence, and John didn't even pretend not to notice the way Sherlock was eyeing the few spare inches of bed to his left. Finally, the good doctor sighed. "Alright, lie your arse down then, you prat, or you're going to keel over in a minute."

Sherlock, much like a cat, pretended for a moment that he was perfectly fine where he was thank-you-very-much. Allowing just enough of a delay to make it clear that it was entirely his idea, and not the answer to a command, he climbed gingerly into the entirely-too-narrow bed with his prickly flatmate. It wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as he would have expected, but then, he was in a substantial amount of pain, and just lying down was a relief.

John wriggled until his and Sherlock's shoulders were scrunched tightly but comfortably together, and moved his pillow so they could share it more easily.

"Sherlock?"

"Hmm?"

"Remember that night we moved in at the flat? When we chased the cabbie through central London and I told you that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever done?"

Sherlock made a soft sound to the affirmative.

"Yeah, I've changed my mind. Sharing a hospital bed with my flatmate after we've broken into a stranger's house to steal semen, only to be stabbed and electrocuted by an eleven-year-old is definitely the most ridiculous thing I've ever done. Including invading Afghanistan."

Sherlock began to laugh, but suppressed it almost immediately. He was missing that morphine, there was no sense denying it, but he'd be damned if he was going back downstairs. He could cope.

"I'm sorry, John." He murmured, and John turned to glance at him, for how often did Sherlock Homes apologize? The detective sighed deeply and tapped his fingers pensively against his sternum. "I miscalculated. It's because of my lack of foresight that you've been wounded, that your life was put in danger, and I just want you to know that - "

"It was worth it."

Sherlock's brows knit together as he turned his head toward his slightly squished friend.

"You've chosen your suicidal bent," John sighed, and to Sherlock's surprise, he was smiling slightly, "and I've chosen to follow you, god help me, but it's been worth it. Every minute and every case and every bloody...electrocution, I would suffer it all again."

In the way that only John could, he had silenced Sherlock rather soundly, and the two of them lay still for a few slow breaths, staring at the ceiling and simply marvelling at the fact that the universe could have spun into existence two people so entirely dissimilar and then – by some cosmic fluke – bound them inseparably together. The fact that those same two people were currently both in one hospital bed in their skivvies was just icing on the metaphysical, metaphorical cake.

"John?"

"Yeah?"

"You're an idiot."

John laughed. "I don't doubt it."

"But I'm glad that you're my idiot."

"Yeah, and I suppose I'm glad you're my idiot as well."

They both laughed softly, and Sherlock felt a small patch of blood seeping through the bandage, but he didn't care. He'd had plenty transfused, he knew he could spare a few drops for the sake of keeping John smiling.

"This is going to be difficult to explain when the next nurse comes in," John added with a sigh.

"Yeah, but at least that twitch in your fingers is gone," Sherlock smirked.

John looked down at his still-slightly-numb hands in surprise and tapped his fingers just to be sure, but Sherlock was right. The tingling was gone, even from the electrical burn on his stomach. Remarkable. Really, it was. Incredible.

John had allowed Sherlock to wriggle under the blanket but not (absolutely not) under the sheet, because unlike someone he could mention, John had not been allowed to retain his pants, and this situation did not need to be one iota more awkward or compromising than it already was.

His paraesthesia subsided and the morphine working its magic, the good doctor had drifted easily into a deep and needed sleep in spite of being slightly squashed by his incorrigible flatmate, but Sherlock had remained awake. The pain in his side was making him clammy and nauseous, but he had chosen his doctor over his morphine, and while he made no illusions about suffering being an easy thing to bear, he knew that he wasn't going back. Not for anything.


	20. Loose Ends and Liars

Oh look, I've forced Sherlock to be in pain again. Why do I do this? Because I am a sadist and I enjoy it. Injuries and sex: my favorite things to write. Sometimes I combine them...

There will be one more chapter after this, as well as a brief epilogue.

* * *

><p>The feather pillow he clung to was soaked with sweat, and his breathing had become ragged. Sodden curls clung to his forehead and what little colour he had was drained from his face.<p>

"Keep looking at me like that, you bastard. I dare you."

The black hollows of absent eyes did not relinquish their icy gaze, and Sherlock glared back as though he could obliterate his own pain by sheer force of will.

"I'm better than you. I've won, don't you understand?" He panted, his voice cracking. "_I've won_."

The pill bottle drifted in and out of focus, framed by the skull's wide-grinning teeth.

It had been two days, and John, good Doctor Watson, in spite of the stiffness in his muscles and the aching in his head, had counted each day to make sure that Sherlock had been taking at least one pill every eight hours. It was Oxycodone, or something in that family of drugs. A generic. An opiate: double the potency of oral morphine, though administered in smaller doses. John made sure Sherlock took them. John did this because he was kind. John did this because he did not want Sherlock to be in pain.

Sherlock had hidden them; he had pretended to swallow and then had spat them into his hand. Every single one that John had plucked from the bottle for him. Sherlock did this because he was weak. Sherlock did this because he was afraid.

He snarled at the skull, still sitting unobtrusively on his bedside table, and knew that he was telling it lies. The pile of illicit drugs had been pushed from his bed the day before yesterday when they had returned from the hospital, and swept hastily under the bed the next day when Lestrade had dropped in to speak with them. John had felt well enough to give him a statement, but it was Sherlock who had spun the web, and Sherlock who held all the threads, so John could only tell so much. He had insisted that the detective wasn't yet in any condition to go through the legal rigmarole, and had shooed Lestrade away. The DI had enough empathy to concede.

The label jumped into focus. _HOLMES, SHERLOCK. 45 tablets. 10 MG. NON-REFILL._ _Take one by mouth every six hours as needed to control pain_.

"I've won," he growled again, though half-heartedly. "You won't take this away from me, too. I won't let you."

The pill bottle drifted until it was little more than an orange blur, and the leering skull solidified behind it in hard, dry lines of chalk-white and jagged shadow. It seemed barely able to restrain its morbid giggling.

The six unswallowed tablets of Oxycodone rested heavily in the drawer beneath it, taunting him with promises of relief and comfort, beckoning him down the slippery slope of emptiness and forgetfulness and starry-eyed wonder.

A feather to tip the scales of his tenuous temperance.

"No," He snarled – though it sounded more like a whimper - to the grinning skull, "I survived, you didn't, I'm stronger than you. Do you hear me? I won't let you have this, Vincent, not this, not him. _I'm stronger than you!_"

Vincent dared him to prove it. Vincent stared at him with long-empty eye sockets and grinned silently, knowing that he was a coward.

Sherlock's jaw clamped tight with determination and his pale, trembling hand closed around the pill bottle, squeezing hard enough to whiten his knuckles. Long moments crept past as the hard plastic cap scored purplish divots into his palm, long moments in which Sherlock did battle with demons he couldn't name, until his fluttering heart finally calmed enough for him to draw a slow, measured breath. With his other hand he unscrewed the cap and stared into the jumble of gritty, oblong tablets. His trembling index finger slid along the plastic and he withdrew one – only one. Slowly, deliberately, he brought it to his lips and dropped it into his mouth, rolling it on his tongue hesitantly for a moment before swallowing it dry.

_As needed to control pain._

The pill bottle snapped back down onto the bedside table, squarely within the skull's line of sight, and Sherlock sneered right back at it.

"I've won, Vincent."

And this time it was true, this time there was conviction to it. The skull was a dry, empty, long-dead thing. The skull had shot its own liquid fate into the crook of its arm years ago. Vincent was dead.

Sherlock knew this. Sherlock had the strength to swallow that one pill, to know that it would do no more than take the edge off the pain in his side, to know that he was in control of it, and not it of him. Sherlock had won.

He sighed his suffering into his pillow and waited for the drug to take effect.

* * *

><p>"You're sure, Sherlock? You're absolutely sure? Because it just seems so…<em>paranoid<em> to think that he–"

"Greg," Sherlock interrupted, and Lestrade looked up, because a first name from Sherlock Holmes meant listen and listen now. "I'm sure."

He flipped through his notes, and John fingered the handle of his mug anxiously as he glanced between them. He still wasn't sure if Sherlock was recovered enough, but he had seemed to make great leaps in improvement since last night, and the DI had been hounding him for a statement, because the higher-ups were clamouring for answers by now. Sherlock had telephoned Lestrade himself that very morning and asked that he drop in down at Baker Street.

"There is no such program as the 'Powers Institute,' here are no records of it, you can look that up yourself, it was a blind. A blind within a blind, if you will, a very elegantly woven deception, but he knew I would figure it out. He counted on it."

"I'm going to repeat this," Lestrade announced, "just to make sure I've got it clearly enough." He cleared his throat and tapped his notepad. "Approximately three months ago, Adrienne Van Orden was contacted by parties unknown, who offered him £50,000 cash and admission to a music school in Switzerland, complete with brochures, admissions forms, photographs…"

"All faked. Faked very nicely, but any idiot with a computer and glossy paper can create a fake pamphlet with a coat of arms on it." Sherlock interjected.

"Yes, I've got that nearly verbatim, I'm just summarizing. So, fake school in Switzerland. The parties in question then _intentionally_ informed him that he would be competing against three others in the selection process for a single spot. These are the girls who turned up dead, and in actuality they had no idea about the whole music school thing, they were just singled out because they were exceptional musicians that Adrienne would have had contact with. After he was informed of this, someone started hinting, sending him sort of... vague suggestions about how best to eliminate his competition."

"Strangers online," Sherlock added, "chat rooms he stumbled across, seemingly at random. Children go blindly about on the internet, he didn't connect them immediately, but it was all organized specifically to plant the idea of murder in his already rather unstable mind."

"Got that, and that's why the mother disappeared from social networking shortly thereafter. She was afraid of the ideas her son seemed to be developing, so she got rid of the computer." Lestrade continued.

Sherlock nodded, his imperious nature prompting him to explain more or less continuously. "It was no good, the inspiration was there, and it grew. The boy convinced his mother that it was the only way to be sure that she would get the money and be rid of him. Given her marital trouble and her son's violent disposition the offer was simply too promising, and Adrienne knew full well that the whole family was afraid of him."

"So," Lestrade resumed, "she decided that, at the risk of bringing the boy's violent temper down upon herself and her daughter, she would go through with it, kill the little girls as humanely as she could, let the boy smack the bodies around, and hide their true motives with the supposed rape, all to be rid of him. Even if the genetic material were identified, the donor would be the one incriminated by it, not her or the boy."

"Ingenious."

"You could call it that, I guess," Lestrade murmured, "so here's what I don't understand, first of all, why create a fake music school just to force a child to kill other children, and second of all, why go to all this trouble, build this elaborate scheme, and then leave this 'Powers Institute' hint that was so obvious to you, specifically?"

"It was a test," Sherlock declared breathily, "isn't it obvious? A test of the boy's intelligence and brutality. He needed to be cold-blooded enough to kill three innocent little girls for personal gain, and smart enough to keep me from deciphering it, even when it was right under my nose. The boy had to keep me from ever getting far enough to learn of the supposed 'Powers' grant, because with a name like that it would be obvious to me who was behind it, it would all unravel. He was grooming the boy, starting from the ground up, Greg, grooming a successor, an heir, a succeeding criminal mastermind."

"Another Moriarty?"

"Yes."

"...Christ."

"But his prospect, in this case at least, fell through. When we visited the house the first time, Adrienne knew that I was on to him, he knew he had failed, so he decided that he would try to redeem himself by dispatching John and I. It wouldn't have worked, dear Jim has his heart set on killing me himself, but Adrienne had suddenly found himself unable to contact his puppet master, he was backed into a corner."

Lestrade nodded slowly, processing. "So, basically, right now, how should we be treating this case?" He sighed, tapping his pen against the notepad in agitation. "Is Moriarty going to be coming after this kid again? He's still in the hospital, should we increase his security, what?"

"Adrienne failed," Sherlock reminded him, "I saw through the plot, Moriarty has no further use for him. As for his security, I would increase it to absolute capacity. Not that it will matter."

"Why?"

"Because Adrienne Van Orden will be dead before he ever gets a chance to testify, likely before he ever leaves that hospital."

Lestrade met his eyes in cold silence.

"James Moriarty," Sherlock explained, leaning forward slightly in his chair and speaking with the gravity of experience, "does not leave loose ends. The boy knows too much."

"Well, we have him under 24-hour surveillance, there are officers outside his door at all times," Lestrade insisted, "at least while we're there, there's no way anyone could - "

His mobile buzzed loudly in his pocket and he was deathly still for an instant before looking fearfully from Sherlock to John, knowing that this was not the first time Sherlock's warnings had very nearly approached divine providence. Hesitantly, he retrieved the phone and raised it to his ear.

"Lestrade." There was an indistinct yammering from the other end, but it sounded urgent. The DI glanced back at Sherlock and his face said it all. "I...god...how?" Pause. "Hold them for questioning, and seize every bottle of that antibiotic; they may all have been tampered with. Yes, immediately. I'm coming now." He ended the call and buried the phone back in his pocket.

He muttered grimly, through tightly clenched teeth. "Do I even have to tell you that you were right?"

"Do I have to tell you I told you so?" Sherlock countered, quietly.

"Wait...wait, the boy's dead? How?" John demanded, genuinely shocked, but tactfully breaking the tension.

"Been dead for nearly an hour," Lestrade growled, "they just realized that it was foul play and not a result of the injury. Someone poisoned the medication they were administering him. They've detained every nurse who's been to tend to him, but he's been given several doses by several people, all of whom had apparently no idea, and no-one can be sure which one killed him. From pathology alone, looks like strychnine."

"Same poison used in the cab driver case," Sherlock pointed out coldly, "though common enough."

"I have to go," Lestrade barked with finality, rising from his seat. "And remember, you two are effectively under house arrest until we sort out what you will and won't be charged with, so please don't do anything...dramatic."

John glanced over at Sherlock, still a little pale (paler than usual) and still in his dressing gown. "We'll be here," he announced authoritatively.

Lestrade nodded, his expression dire as he took a few steps toward the door. "Take care of yourselves, the both of you. Can't have _you_ dropping dead as well."

"Detective Inspector," Sherlock called after him, and he turned briefly, "don't blame yourself. Or your staff, for that matter. There's nothing you could have done, the boy chose his own end. This is how he operates."

"If that was supposed to be reassuring – "

"It wasn't."

Another tense silence – only the latest of a career's worth – passed between them before Lestrade reminded him tersely, "unofficial house arrest, both of you, I'm serious," then turned to hurry down the stairs.

John leaned back in his chair, forgetting for a moment that the back of his head was still painfully bruised. "You're overdue for more codone," he remembered suddenly, glancing up at his flatmate, every bit the attentive doctor.

"I'm fine."

"Take it for my sake then," he insisted, pushing himself to his feet with a sigh. "Just to shut me up."

Sherlock's eyes fell closed for a moment before he stood gingerly – hand pressed to his wounded side - and retreated grudgingly to his room, the good doctor tight on his heels, looking after him like a parent, like a friend, like the exceptional human being that he was.


	21. Memory

Readers, we have come to the end of our journey together (and just in time, too, what with Series 2 about to tear us all to pieces) and it has been a most rewarding and heartfelt one for me, at least. In case you didn't notice, this story has just achieved novel-length (45,000+ words), and that blows my mind like you wouldn't believe.

There will be an epilogue, but I am not yet sure whether I will post it as a final chapter here or as a separate story, so we shall see.

To all you lurkers who have been reading from the shadows, I would very much like to hear what you think, be it positive or negative, so if you feel so inclined, I would be honored to see a review from you.

Enjoy, and thank you all so much!

* * *

><p>"So do you… think he knew?"<p>

Sherlock paused mid-swig, the glass of water chill against his lip and the gritty Oxycodone tablet pressed to the roof of his mouth. He glanced at John, but John was busy trying not to make eye contact. Pensively, Sherlock downed the pill and handed the glass back to the good doctor, who took it, though hesitantly.

"He knows a lot of things," Sherlock replied, perching himself on the corner of his desk, "to which of those are you referring?"

"Well, the whole case started as a rape investigation." He elaborated, leaning on the footboard of Sherlock's bed and still venturing to look directly at his flatmate in only brief, fleeting glances. "Do you think that Moriarty maybe suggested that...specific diversion? Did he know about what happened to you all those years ago and expect it to throw you off?"

Sherlock smiled patronizingly and shook his head. "Just a coincidence."

"I seem to recall you telling me once that there are very few true coincidences," John pressed.

"I know what it seems like," Sherlock conceded, "a man as intelligent and as wily and as well-connected as Jim Moriarty would make it his business to know absolutely everything he could about his adversary, certainly. And if past encounters are any indication, he would take any opportunity to use that information against me, but trust me when I tell you that the only people who know about that are in this room right now, and at least one of them certainly hasn't been spreading it around."

"I haven't told anyone," John agreed with resolute devotion, then his brow furrowed, "but there _is_ at least one other person who knows," he reasoned, "this guy, Vincent, maybe he got...braggy, or maybe he was bribed - "

"As I said," Sherlock reiterated, looking down at John with emphatic finality, "the only people who _have ever_ known are in this room. Right now."

Had it been possible, John's expression would have grown even more perplexed, but his eyebrows could only knit so close. "But - " It occurred to him then to follow Sherlock's line of sight, and where Sherlock was looking at that very moment was at the greyish, chalk-dry skull that – though emptied of its previous contents - still rested quietly on the bedside table.

John felt suddenly as if the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He snapped to attention and took a step back that sent him bumping onto the chest of drawers, as though physically distancing himself from the thing would somehow lessen the gravity of its implication. "Christ..." he breathed, disbelieving, "you didn't...you _actually killed_ him? I mean, I can't say I blame you, but - "

"Oh don't be so dramatic," Sherlock scoffed, fluffing his hair nonchalantly, "no, it was much more fitting than that." He nodded toward the skull as if saluting an old friend. "He killed himself. Inadvertently, of course, heroin overdose, the year after I went back to school. The friends who had been with him were too afraid to go to the police, they just cleared off, let him die there in that empty flat. He didn't have any family to speak of, at least, none that cared enough to check in on him. It was two weeks before anyone found the body, an even then it was only because of the smell. The police couldn't locate any living relatives, so they asked the landlord if he'd had any close friends who they could sign the remains over to. He'd had plenty of flatmates, they came and went practically every month, but 'Sherlock' is a memorable enough and an uncommon enough name that I was the first person they tracked down."

"So you just _kept_ his corpse?"

"Let me finish!" He snapped, rolling his eyes slightly, "No, I had it donated to science, specifically, to the anatomy and physiology lab at Sidney Sussex College. Paid a facility in Germany to strip him down to a skeleton and put it on an articulated frame so it could be used as a model. The year I left, the skull of that skeleton went _mysteriously_ missing. The rest of him is still there, still used, and the students still do call him Vincent, though they assume it's just a nickname, but I figured I deserved a little memento of our time together. He does legally belong to me, after all."

"And you kept drugs in there because of..."

"Irony."

"Right..." he shook his head, nearly smiling. "My god, Sherlock, you are the most uncanny...thing."

Sherlock just shrugged.

"And...that's how you cope? By making your assailant's remains your own personal joke?"

"I put silly hats on it sometimes," he murmured, leaning over to lift it from the table and hold it aloft, very much like Hamlet.

John pursed his lips. "Mycroft told me –"

"Never listen to Mycroft."

"Mycroft told me," John continued determinedly, "that the night you moved in with him, the night you left Vincent, that you overdosed. On cocaine. He said you very nearly died."

"Oh, I didn't _very nearly_ anything." He lowered his arm and tossed the skull casually in his hand, his tone dismissive. "Eight minutes, didn't he mention? Stone dead. Luckily I was too stubborn to stay that way."

"Sherlock," John continued, his tone softening slightly with every word, "I'm not sure what you're trying to prove with this...flippancy of yours, and, well, I can't pretend to know how you were feeling that night, what was going through your head, but just tell me, just so I know...was it _really_ an accident? I mean, as smart as you are, it seems to me you would have...at least known how much you could tolerate."

Sherlock's tongue touched his lips and he did not respond immediately. Careful of his injured side, he pushed off the desk, set the skull back on the table, and lay down heavily on his bed, eyes distant as he considered his response carefully.

"It wasn't an accident," he admitted, his tone measured, "but I wasn't trying to kill myself, either."

"Then what in god's name were you trying to do?"

Sherlock closed his eyes and let out his next breath meditatively. "Reboot."

John's face screwed up distastefully. "What do you mean, reboot?"

"I mean _start over_," he put his hands to his forehead, "wipe the hard drive, delete everything. Cocaine..." he paused, finding himself in a rare predicament indeed, struggling to articulate his thoughts, "it simplifies things, and makes them more complex all at the same time. It's discordant, but it gives me the capacity to see order in discord, and it makes it easy for me to just erase things, delete unnecessary information. When I come back down, everything is easier to process, because all that _noise_ is gone. I theorized that with _enough_ cocaine, I could...reset all systems completely. Maybe not erase all the memories, because some contained useful information, but separate them from emotion, store them like files, force them to make sense."

"And it didn't work."

"In some sense, it did. Death has an extraordinary effect on the brain," Sherlock mused, his eyes having drifted open to gaze toward the ceiling. "I suffered retrograde amnesia, months' worth, but of the opposite sort that I had intended. I was left with a cacophony of emotion and no memories to associate them with. I remembered Vincent, but had no idea what he'd done to make my hands shake and my heart pond and my stomach turn whenever I thought of him. That _confusion_ scared me far more than the feeling itself, the feeling that I was missing something hugely important but couldn't retrieve it."

John was now leaning against the chest of drawers, arms crossed, his gaze still fixed on Sherlock, but slightly vacant nonetheless. "When did you finally sort it all out?"

Sherlock's eyes flicked from their comfortable fix on the ceiling to meet John's, and he smiled wryly. "A week ago."

John decided that he must learn to resign himself to the fact that Sherlock would never, ever stop surprising him, but he couldn't stop the very blunt "You're not serious?" that tumbled from his mouth.

"Quite serious. I retained certain associations, a few split-second flashes of recollection, but absolutely nothing I could put together in any comprehensible way."

"So you really didn't properly remember until...until you overdosed again?"

"Hardly surprising," Sherlock sighed, "brain trauma does tend to work that way, experience will recall associated memories, it happens often with smells, sounds, things like that."

"I know, I've heard of it happening, but..." he trailed off. "So refusing to take rape cases..."

"I told you. My reasons – my conscious reasons, at least – were exactly as I said."

"You mentioned you'd had sex before. So you _weren't_ referring to Vincent?"

"No."

John decided that the line of questioning warranted no further intrusion. The burn on his stomach still tingling unpleasantly, he took a few steps nearer and sat heavily on the foot of Sherlock's bed. He ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh and then lay back, his heels just barely short of the floor. "So were you trying to delete me, then?"

"Hmm?"

"That night, with the morphine, is that what you were doing? I was angry with you, I know, and it wasn't the case you were thinking about, so don't feed me that bollocks. Morphine is a downer, not an upper, it wouldn't have helped your 'cognitive abilities,' so what was it?"

Sherlock sighed. "I was just...trying to turn off. Too many emotions, too much I couldn't sort out. I wanted a respite." He tilted his head up to look at John more directly. "And that _was_ an accident. I knew I was taking a high dose, but it had been a while, and I was impatient."

John grumbled and shook his aching head disapprovingly against the duvet.

"I don't think I could delete you if I tried, anyway."

John half-smiled. "Well, that's...comforting."

"My associative memory would respond every time I heard the words 'get milk' in a sentence, it would be a disaster."

He was actually smiling now. "Yes, speaking of which –"

"House arrest, John."

John snorted with indignant laughter. "If this were literally any other situation, you would completely disregard that, yet you have the audacity to use it as an excuse not to do the shopping?"

"Um...yes."

"And you know that we're not legally under house arrest, right? We haven't officially been charged with anything, not yet anyway; Lestrade is just trying to keep a leash on us so we don't get into any more trouble."

"I know."

John sighed in exasperation. "So, what are we going to do with no non-perishable food and no means of entertaining ourselves for the next...indeterminate amount of time?"

"I'm sure I'll think of something."

"Just promise me that you won't blow anything up."

"I will not," he paused, choosing his words carefully, "_intentionally_ blow anything up."

"That means nothing."

"I know, I'm covering myself."

"You never change."

"I never intend to."

John nudged Sherlock's foot rather roughly away with his shoulder. It had been drifting awkwardly close to his ear for the last several minutes.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he admitted grudgingly, with a long-suffering sigh.

"I know." His mouth twitched into a smile as he tilted his head down to gaze fondly at the army doctor laid across the foot of his bed. "Nor would I."


	22. Epilogue: V for Victory

For those of you not familiar with the Doyle canon, this is sort of my version/interpretation/bastardization of the scenario leading up to "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott". It's not really important that you know that, except to note that Victor Trevor is a canonical character and a friend of Sherlock Holmes's at Sidney Sussex College.

And before you start: yes, I know it took me 2 months to finish the epilogue. I'm only human, I do apologize.

* * *

><p>"Sherlock, I know you only weigh about half a fucking stone, but hurry up anyway."<p>

"Shh!"

With a bite of his lip and a roll of his eyes, Victor obeyed. Momentarily. His voice low, he continued to grumble his protest. "My arm is falling asleep." He shifted the hand that was cupped beneath the sole of Sherlock's right shoe, trying to take some of his friend's weight off his own disproportionately burdened right arm. "Jesus, have you almost got it or what?"

"Hold on!" Sherlock snarled, the late spring chill in the air slowed his fingers as they guided the flat bit of metal through the narrow crack between window and sill, prying at the latch. So acute was his concentration that he nearly bit blood from his tongue as his teeth clenched tighter. Just as Victor opened his mouth to whine another protest, the latch gave a satisfying click and the window popped open a few centimetres. Gripping the sill, Sherlock silently pulled himself up onto the narrow ledge and slithered gracefully through the tiny window, pausing only to make sure that the wire cutters in his pocket didn't tap against anything. Scratches on the sill were suspicious enough; broken glass would be nails in their respective coffins.

His most crucial job now complete, Victor turned his back and leaned against the cool brick wall and casually stood guard, running his fingers through his wavy blond hair. He was itching for a cigarette, but he knew that Sherlock would scold him for drawing attention to himself. His fingers slid into his pocket and an impish smile lit up his face. He loved it when Sherlock scolded him, but he needed the impetuous genius in a good mood this evening in particular, that's why he had so eagerly agreed to Operation Head Hunter, as he'd affectionately named it. Sherlock had scowled at that.

He loved it when Sherlock scowled.

He was getting a bit antsy. He wasn't sure how long it would take to snip the supporting wires that held a human skull onto the rest of it's preserved, articulated skeleton, but surely…thirty-eight seconds would have been long enough? Thirty-eight seconds is a long time, longer than you realise in day-to-day life. A long time to stand guard and wait in the middle of the night, at least.

Finally, with a soft huff, Sherlock wriggled back through the window, pushing a pale, grinning skull onto the ledge in front of him and positioning himself uncomfortably so as not to knock it to the ground below. Victor reached his hand over his head and gave a little inviting gesture, intending Sherlock to hand him the skull so he could make it out more easily. Sherlock noticed, but wouldn't suffer Victor to touch it. Near the end of his manoeuvring, the back of his pea coat caught on the window latch and the ripping sound it produced was so deafening that both boys clenched their teeth and froze.

An agonizing ten second wait produced no authority figures, so Victor gestured more urgently and Sherlock allowed his friend to help him to ground level, only to lift him back up a moment later to re-latch the window and collect the skull. Victor was tempted to take Sherlock's hand as they hurriedly – but not _too_ hurriedly – strolled back across campus, but he decided that it wasn't the time for it. Later. Later, when Sherlock was properly high on his victory, he'd allow it then. Victor smiled again. The casualness with which Sherlock sauntered, stolen skull under his arm, coat torn, and not a shadow of concern on his face, was incredible. He was tailor-made for a life of crime.

* * *

><p>"I like it."<p>

Sherlock blinked out of his contemplation and – for the first time in the last ten minutes – turned to look down at his companion. Victor had one of those winning smiles that could warm your whole body, and he was using it now – almost literally. His chin rested affectionately on Sherlock's sternum, his left hand sandwiched between his own chest and Sherlock's stomach and his knees curled up off to one side, so when he smiled, Sherlock could feel it in his chest.

"It's very _you_, Sherlock, to have a pet skull," he added, "It's kind of ogling me, though."

"It can't ogle you, it doesn't have eyes." His voice rumbled through his chest, and Victor's eyes slid contentedly shut for a moment.

"Thank you, captain literal," he teased. Pushing up onto his hands, he leaned over and spun the skull on the nightstand until it faced the blank wall. "There, now you've just got me to look at."

"If you insist."

Victor was unique in the respect that Sherlock's flat indifference had no effect on him whatsoever. Sherlock could spit all the venom he wanted, and it would only endear Victor to him that much more. "Look at me."

Sherlock did.

"I want you to come home with me. When classes are over. My dad said it's alright, I asked him a while ago."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed, but his mouth softened slightly. His gaze drifted along the ceiling.

"Sherlock." Victor insisted quietly. "I know you don't want to go home to your brother and your father. Mycroft avoids you as much as possible and your father thinks you're a freak and a failure and it makes me sick. You're alone in that big, pretentious house, I hate it."

"You have a big, pretentious house, Victor," Sherlock pointed out with the shadow of a smile.

Victor smiled, partly because it was true, but mostly because Sherlock had smiled first. "But you don't have to be alone in mine." Gently, his hand slid beneath Sherlock's shirt, trailing fingertips along soft skin, and Sherlock sighed quietly. Biting his lip, he dared to brush the pale, raised scar along the crest of Sherlock's hip. The deeply, clumsily carved letter "V," as clear to the touch as it was to look at, if Sherlock could ever be convinced let you see it, which had happened only once.

He stiffened, but didn't protest.

"Why do you never – "

"I don't remember."

Victor swallowed sourly. "How could you not remember? Not even remember what it stands for?"

"It doesn't matter, maybe it was an accident. A 'V' is just two lines."

"You know it wasn't an accident."

Sherlock scoffed, and with his right hand he spun the skull back around to face him. A skull is a terribly easy sort of friend to chat with, they never ask prying questions. They do rather _ogle _you, though, when they know your secrets better than you yourself. Somewhere below his belly, he felt Victor's lips press against his skin, and the skull mocked him.

"Veni, vidi, vici," Victor crooned, following Sherlock's gaze as it reattached to his prize, "V for victory."

"It can be V for Victor if you prefer." He hadn't meant it in the way that Victor thought he meant it, but when he felt the rush of Victor's heart as it fluttered against his stomach, he was glad he'd been misunderstood. The skull was laughing silently now.

"I'll come home with you," Sherlock conceded quietly, "if you want."

Victor's perfect smile was so wide that Sherlock felt it radiating all the way through his fingertips. "Sherlock – "

"Hmm?"

He laughed, "Nothing, just…turn it the other way."

"Why?"

"Because." he pushed up into a sitting position and leaned in close to Sherlock's face, "I don't want it watching." It was hardly the first time Victor had kissed him, just then, warmly and without greed or malice or ulterior motives, but it was the first time in a very long tome that Sherlock felt profoundly unsure about something, and somewhere in the back of his conscious thought, he wanted very much to be alone.

He decided finally – as he lay awake and Victor slept soundly beside him – that he _did _want to stay with Victor and not alone in his "pretentious" house, and that he didn't particularly mind that Victor was secretly, quietly, lovingly hoping against hope that they would sleep together somewhere along that timeline, and not in the sense that they were doing now.

Sherlock sighed and glanced back at the skull, who apparently thought all this musing of his on sex and love was very funny indeed.

Vincent, was the skull's name, and Sherlock wasn't sure exactly why he knew that. He hadn't named, it had he? He wasn't in the habit of naming inanimate objects or speculating about names they might have once had.

Vincent.

Belatedly, he honoured Victor's request and turned the gaping eye sockets toward the wall. He was in no mood to be so scrutinized, to be judged. For one of the first times in his life, he had something to look forward to.


End file.
